‘Dark Tower’ a multiverse fantasy
Film of King’s multiverse years in the making
McConaughey and Elba face off in Stephen King film.
NEW YORK Idris Elba’s latest taste of die-hard fandom left a lasting impression.
The suave British heartthrob, who has appeared in summer popcorn movies Thor and Star
Trek Beyond, steps into his next potential franchise with Stephen King ’s The Dark Tower (in theaters Friday), in which he plays grizzled gunslinger Roland Deschain opposite Matthew McConaughey’s diabolical sorcerer Walter O’Dim (aka the Man in Black).
Meeting fans while promoting the film, “I saw a guy who had a Roland tattoo on his calf,” says Elba, whose character is depicted as white in the books. “It was clearly done before I was cast, so it looked exactly like Matthew. But I was equally proud that was me, except not like me.”
“He’s going to retouch it up now,” McConaughey jokes.
Dark Tower is the long-gestating adaptation of King ’s popular fantasy series, which was in development for more than a decade under directors J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard. Both struggled to adapt the intricate source material — which features multiple worlds, varying timelines and monstrous creatures — and the project was eventually passed to Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel ( A Royal Affair). The ambitious film is expected to open with a healthy $28 million against a $60 million production budget, according to BoxOffice.com, despite its release date being pushed back multiple times. The story pulls from various books in King ’s series, as Roland reluctantly teams up with middle-school outcast Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) to defeat Walter, whose mission is to destroy the Dark Tower, a mythical structure binding time and space.
Elba, 44, was only vaguely familiar with the series before signing on, but was excited to put a grittier spin on Roland, who in the books is depicted as a Clint Eastwood-style cowboy hero.
“I had to try and bring a depth to him without just frowning all the time, which I do a lot of,” says Elba, who pulled off Roland’s fancy gun work through a mix of training and visual effects.
Roland seeks revenge after Walter kills his father (Dennis Haysbert). The character is “almost like a war veteran wandering the wilderness alone,” Arcel says. The Man in Black, meanwhile, is like the devil.
McConaughey, 47, knew nothing about Dark Tower before reading the script. He relished the chance to jump into an original franchise at the ground floor.
“I had been looking for something that was a fun summer blockbuster ... that has a heightened reality to it” without being a CGI spectacle, McConaughey says. “No one’s wearing a cape.”
But despite the PG-13 movie’s young protagonist and magical setting, McConaughey’s three kids with model Camila Alves will need to wait another few years to see it. “There’s some stuff in Dark
Tower that’s just ripe for nightmares,” McConaughey says.