Idris Elba as Roland Deschain?!

[Glebe]

Ugh - NOT Aaron Paul for Eddie please

Well, he's got the go-ahead from the man himself.

NEW PAGE KA-TET.

[Glebe]

'Dark Tower' Taps Newcomer Tom Taylor for Jake Chambers Role (EXCLUSIVE).

[BritishHobo]

Some interesting notes in that - release date now moved to February, and also what seems to be confirmation that there will be a TV show to run alongside (from MRC, who make House of Cards).

[Natnar]

I'd rather see Idris play Roland Orzabal, i think he could play the post Seeds-Of-Love anguished split years quite well. With Tracy Morgan as Curt Smith of course.

[mothman]

And Ben Whishaw as Oleta Adams.

[Glebe]

Abbey Lee is NOT the female lead of The Dark Tower and other Mid-World updates!

[BritishHobo]

So definitely

Spoiler alert

just a Roland/Jake story, no Eddie or Susannah til film two. I quite like the idea of the first one having Roland disillusioned and unsure about continuing his journey. Folding all the Jake stuff from 2/3 on top of that could mean a brilliant first movie all about Roland's quest and WHY he's doing it and WHY he's so determined, before moving on in a second film to the ka-tet and the quest itself.

[close]

The comments are your usual IF YOU CHANGE EVEN A LETTER OF THE BOOKS YOU'RE A HACK, THIS WILL SUCK dross. Fuck 'em. I'm excited, no matter what version we get.

[Glebe]

Jackie Earle Haley To Co-Star In 'The Tick' Amazon Pilot, Joins 'The Dark Tower' Film.

I liked him as Rorschach.

[Glebe]

More casting news:

Fran Kranz Joins Stephen King Adaptation 'The Dark Tower' (Exclusive).

[BritishHobo]

Both great castings. Kranz was a huge standout in Dollhouse and Cabin in the Woods, and I've always wanted to see him do more stuff.

Lot of predictable doommongering because they've been cast as characters who don't appear until the end of the series, but who gives a tin fuck? Given the enormous gulf between books 4 and 5, and the clear and massive shift in what King wanted to do with the world (the sudden appearance of all the metatextual elements and many other things vital to the endgame), some added continuity and consistency might be a good thing.

No matter how this turns out, I fear its critical reception is already doomed by tedious, unimaginative fans who refuse to accept adaptations as their own version of the story.

[Bazooka]

I can appreciate its way too vast to do it as a film, the Game Of Thrones series format would be better. Even having time to think about it now, Idris Elba is not Roland.

[Glebe]

'Vikings' Star Katheryn Winnick Joins 'The Dark Tower' (EXCLUSIVE).

My brother is an extra on Vikings, so in a way I am directly connected to this, and maybe even deserve a credit.

[Glebe]

And another! Eat that.

'The Dark Tower' Looking To Add Sundance Star Michael Barbieri To Cast

[colacentral]

My dream casting:

Roland - The Rock
Eddie - Russell Brand
Suzannah - Whoopi Goldberg
Jake - 10 year old Jake Lloyd

[Glebe]

Crikey!:

The Dark Tower set photos reveal first look at Stephen King's Mid-World.

I like the scorched-earth look of that last photo.

[BritishHobo]

Cheers, Glebe! Really appreciate all your updates.

[BritishHobo]

King has implied that this will be a sequel to the books, in that it may be another turn of the wheel, and possibly

Spoiler alert

the final one.

[close]

That got me really excited, but not for long, because all his fans were there to ruin it. The Dark Tower has made me decide I fucking hate fans on the internet. They're twats. Stupid, witless, smug, sneering patronising twats. I'll put aside the black Roland stuff (although I'm SO FUCKING BORED of people saying 'oh there's LITERALLY NO WAY to do Detta's storyline now' on EVERY comment thread, despite EVERY comment thread containing a multitude of possibilities - have some fucking imagination, jesus), because it's less about that and more about a general attitude of 'oh, I knew this would be shit'.

Based on the scant material we have - starting 'in media res', Eddie and Susannah not being in this film - the rumour mill has gone apeshit. I'm seeing two particular notions - that the entire series is being condensed into a single film and that Eddie/Susannah have been completely written out - tossed around as known fact, despite there being absolutely no basis for them whatsoever. People are inventing their own doommongering, and I'm fucking tired by it.

More than that though is the choking air of superiority. All these book-wankers have made all these snotty assumptions based on such little information, and now they've decided the movie is definitively awful, definitively irredeemable, that we don't need a trailer or anything more than vague snippets to know this, and now they're stinking up any discussion of it with the most precious, entitled bollocks you've ever seen. If I see one more cunt say 'the only similarity to the books is the title 'The Dark Tower'' because a white man is black and some later villains appear earlier, I'm going to reach through my screen and fucking throttle them. Everyone banging on about how King knows nothing and Hollywood is shit and nobody cares about the integrity of the story and waaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaaah even though EVERYTHING they know is from snippets in interviews and they've not even seen a plot description, let alone a trailer.

Fans are the fucking worst.

[BritishHobo]

Sorry if that applies to you, but come on, aye? Fuckin' give it a chance, no?

[Bazooka]

I want to see the thinny.

[TheFalconMalteser]

I don't think Idris Elba is very good, personally?  I comes across as a bit of an egotist and wally, esp in an old Jonathon Ross interview where he KEPT flexing his muscles.

I was reading a comment on the Bond discussion which I agreed with - Idris seems to keep being mentioned as a possible Black bond and I think it's pretty lazy, there's little in his work that suggests he'd be good at that.  Chiwetelu Umeadi Ejiofor and Adrian Lester would both be much more interesting.  Idris Elba is the equivalent of Jason Statham, isn't it?  Just a british bloke who likes some pwoppa tasty clobber.

[Pit-Pat]

I don't think Idris Elba is very good, personally?  I comes across as a bit of an egotist and wally, esp in an old Jonathon Ross interview where he KEPT flexing his muscles.

I was reading a comment on the Bond discussion which I agreed with - Idris seems to keep being mentioned as a possible Black bond and I think it's pretty lazy, there's little in his work that suggests he'd be good at that.  Chiwetelu Umeadi Ejiofor and Adrian Lester would both be much more interesting.  Idris Elba is the equivalent of Jason Statham, isn't it?  Just a british bloke who likes some pwoppa tasty clobber.

Have you seen The Wire?

The way Elba can come across as somewhat dim[nb]In some circumstances. I think his performance as Stringer Bell suggests that it's not really the case[/nb] actually makes sense given the way King describes Roland as having a distinct lack of imagination.

[TheFalconMalteser]

I think he's good in the Wire, but personally I think that shows he can be directed.  I don't think it's that challenging role for him - he basically just has to look serious. 

Spoiler alert

Even his death scene

[close]

doesn't require much emotion, does it? 

I must admit I've not seen him in the Mandela film which presumably is a beefier role.

[Mister Six]

Luther and Stringer Bell are such phenomenally different roles that they prove to me that he's a fucking corking actor. What he's like as a person is neither here nor there. Robert De Niro is a boring bastard in real life, but he was still able to become the interesting Jake Lamotta and Travis Bickle.

[Glebe]

Potentially spoilerish.

Right, so... 'allows' for changes.

[BritishHobo]

That's the one! It seems to openly imply that we could very well see

Spoiler alert

an actual closed ending for the books as well as the films.

[close]

That's why I got annoyed. It just made me sad that this new possibility is open and everyone chose instead to doommonger about how it'll be crap and not to bother. Although it did lead to a fantastic moment where my housemate, sick of me arguing about it on the Fans of Stephen King's Facebook page, left a comment accusing me of being a made-up troll - because 'he's left an argumentative response on every comment, and if you look at his profile pictures, he looks the same in all of them'.

[Glebe]

The race/casting controversy has even affected stage play sequels to hugely-popular child wizard books:

JK Rowling tells of anger at attacks on casting of black Hermione.

[Bazooka]

Who is going to play Oy the billy bumbler?

[Glebe]

Who is going to play Oy the billy bumbler?

A trained badger.

[Glebe]

'The Dark Tower': Idris Elba Releases New Teaser Image.

Fuck sake, give us a set photo, lads.

[Glebe]

New 'The Dark Tower' Set Photos Reveal Matthew McConaughey's Man in Black.

Interesting... he looks suitably mean.