The Dark Tower

It’s all happening. Yes, really. Once thought to be too ambitious and sprawling for a big screen adaptation, The Dark Tower is finally hitting theaters next February, with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey in the dueling roles of the heroic Gunslinger and the villainous Man in Black. New photos of the actors have debuted, along with more details on the characters they play in the long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s epic book series — which is going to be making some pretty big changes on its journey from page to screen.

“The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed” — every fan of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series has that opening line from The Gunslinger seared into their brains. We’ve already gotten a look at Idris Elba as the heroic gunslinger Roland Deschain, but today brings our first peek at the other half of that equation thanks to some new set photos of Matthew McConaughey.

One of the trickiest roles to cast in an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is that of Jake Chambers, the young boy who meets Roland Deschain during his journey in the first novel and becomes a key figure in the gunslinger’s story — not just once, but twice. He’s an incredibly vital member of the story, but given his age (11), the length of the series, and the impossibility of keeping a kid from growing up, Jake is easily the most difficult role to fill. But director Nikolaj Arcel has done it anyway, casting a relative newcomer in the long-awaited adaptation.

Alright, alright, alright. Bangor's No. 1 resident Stephen King has another book-to-movie project in the works. The Dark Tower series is being made into films, and a TV show further down the road. The first movie will be based on the first book 'The Gunslinger...