In the case of Roland, Elba paints him as “a bit lost” and as someone who has “forgotten the face of his father” as King put it in the books.
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Earlier today, we got our first official look at Nikolaj Arcel’s The Dark Tower, the adaptation/remix of Stephen King’s beloved horror/fantasy/western/science fiction series that has become a cornerstone of modern genre fiction. Entertainment Weekly sat down with McConaughey on the film’s South African set and they chatted all about Walter, otherwise known to King fans as “the man in black”. An adaptation of this Western science fiction series has been widely expected by the fans for a long time so the expectations are high for this blockbuster.
“The Tower is a beacon of light in a world that’s cynical and dark and sometimes feels a little hopeless, and this is about the quest for that”. The magazine itself, with Idris Elba’s Roland and Matthew McConaughey’s Man In Black on the cover, doesn’t come out until next week.
The rest of the article is full of deep cuts and details and plot points that Dark Tower fans will appreciate and newbies will puzzle over and it is very much worth your time.
On that note, there’s another big change that Arcel is making to the books, but it’s more of a clarification about the kind of story he wants to tell in his movie than it is an actual difference.
“You know, he’s not literally the Devil, but I sure as hell think about him like the Devil”, McConaughey told E.W. with a grin, before quoting Black Sabbath: “Follow me now / And you will not regret / Leaving the life you led / Before we met”.
Yet like Roland, Walter is getting worn down by their years of battle, even though Walter actually “reveres” the gunslinger that has spent lifetimes hating him in return. “I think the entire story deserves to be told and should be told”. “He’s really the only true adversary I have”. He was actually the first cast member announced for the film, an important step for a movie that has suffered many false starts in the past. I expose hypocrisies, and he’s the closest to pure there is.
The 43-year-old actor digressed on the casting, insisting he was “thrilled to get this job”, though namely how it could divert from the book’s initial description. He’s very precious to me.
First up, when King debuted a new teaser image for The Dark Tower back in May, Wampler quickly took to the interwebs to explain just what was going on. When Roland reaches the tower in the seventh book, the story comes to an end and Stephen King coyly implores the reader to stop there – but if you read on, Roland enters the tower and gets to the top, only to realize that he’s been on this journey many times before, and each time it ends in failure.
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“The Dark Tower” heads to cinemas on 17 February 2017.
