Stephen King gave fans a tiny treat on Sunday, sharing the first teaser poster for The Dark Tower film coming this summer. The visual plays on the opposing sides of the journey while also playing tricks with your eyes, placing the tower itself amongst the buildings of the city. It might seem like New York City, but it’s actually meant to be Lud according to SlashFilm and also reportedly proves that this film will borrow bit and pieces from across the books since Lud doesn’t show up until book three.
The poster is the latest reminder that this is actually happening, after years of delayed starts and failed attempts. That’s no guarantee that it will be good, but it does mean we’re going to see King’s epic brought to life with the talent and fanfare it deserves.
Ron Howard talked about the project’s long history with Deadline back in September and discussed choosing Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey for their respective roles:
I read all the novels and we broke them down. He presented this idea to Stephen King, and this is insider material you might not get, but it was about introducing the Horn of Eld into the very first story. He knew it would allow us to use elements of the novels in a new combination that would give us the latitude to be true to the essence of the novels, but also re-balance and refocus the narrative in a cinematic way. That was the jumping-off point that began this process…
We simplified the story line, made it less expensive as a result, but we still utilized a lot of those important structural adjustments that Akiva and I had devised going back years ago. One of the things we did was put together a team of Dark Tower researchers, devotees of the books. We wanted to restructure the novels to be most cinematic and Stephen King agreed completely and understood the journey we were on immediately and supported it.
He also added that they were working out the planned TV sections at the time, something that involved Idris Elba at the time and hopefully still does. All and all, it’s a good time to be a fan of Stephen King material.
(Via Slash Film / Deadline)
