Idris Elba as Roland Deschain?!

[Glebe]

...And here is Idris Elba as Roland Deschain.

NEW PAGE FACE OF YOUR FATHER.

[Glebe]

Want to see a doorway into Mid-World? Dark Tower filming in NY right now!

Please let this be good...

[BritishHobo]

So it's all but guaranteed at this point that this will be

Spoiler alert

a combination of The Gunslinger with the rest of Jake's drawing from The Wastelands, right?

[close]

If only they'd clarify that, because the vast majority of hate for it is coming from misconceptions about it being all seven books in one movie, or skipping the first four books, or jettisoning Eddie and Susannah altogether, or all of the above.

[Bazooka]

It would be way too radical to try and fit all the books in the one film, not even the Hobbit 2 did that.

[BritishHobo]

Yeah. I've literally no idea where that rumour originated from, but I've seen it touted in so many places as if it's fact.

[Glebe]

The Dark Tower: Idris Elba on breathing fire into Stephen King's Gunslinger.

The Dark Tower: Matthew McConaughey ends worlds as The Man in Black.

I wish they'd kept Roland's long hair, but in any case I'm really getting psyched up for this now like a giant geek.

[Glebe]

'The Dark Tower': Exclusive First Look Images.

*excited*

[BritishHobo]

I'm not gonna read any other Dark Tower threads but this one anymore. They're fucking me off. All the news and photos this week have been so exciting. Can't wait to see this come to life.

[Glebe]

The Dark Tower: What the film changes (and keeps) from Stephen King's books.

How The Dark Tower movie connects to Stephen King's other books.

Pieces of Eight: What The Dark Tower movie draws from each Stephen King novel.

I haven't read The Wind Through the Keyhole yet... if I get a chance, I'd like to reread the main series. Hopefully King will get around to revising the whole thing (as he did with The Gunslinger).

[BritishHobo]

Definitely read it! I slotted it in between 4 and 5 (or was it 3 and 4?) when I first read them, and without spoiling anything it enhanced Roland a little bit for me.

Side note, they're selling real copies of Charlie The Choo-Choo at Comic-Con, but there'll only be 150 copies.

[Glebe]

Footage soon, lads...

[Glebe]

New pic.

[BritishHobo]

Oh, fuck yes.

[Glebe]

Quint talks with Production Designer Christopher Glass about building THE JUNGLE BOOK from the ground up and his work on THE DARK TOWER!

Quint: You should be proud, it's a gorgeous film and a real audience pleaser. Before I let you go, I have to ask you a little bit about something that's a huge passion of mine. It started when I was in Middle School and I found a book called The Gunslinger in my school library. You just finished work on The Dark Tower movie. Production design is one of the key things that sets tone for a film. That means you had one of the toughest jobs on this project because the story itself is a mashup of a bunch of different genres, western, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, etc. How did you crack so the tone was something unique without being too all over the place?

Christopher Glass: There was a lot of exploration in terms of concept art and finding references, working with Nik (Arcel), the director and looking at stuff. There were some people who were avid fans and I'm not a rabid fan. I'm a fan, but I'm not like you, I didn't grow up with it. The director did.

It was a huge challenge, but we ended up creating a litmus test. Not consciously... we didn't say, "here's our litmus test!" We didn't list it out, it was more like "Do we buy that? Are we trying too hard? Is this going too far?" We did something something similar on The Jungle Book. How far do you go with the anthropomorphizing animals?

You have to have some restraint, so we were trying to find that restraint to give the audience something they relate to, but it is slightly tweaked in a way that doesn't take it too fantastical and too crazy so you're like "Okay, it's just another CG fest." You gotta be careful that you don't let the technology and the blank canvas overwhelm you and take over. "We can do anything, so let's just make it go crazy!"

Blending all these genres is difficult, but I think we did a pretty darn good job. I guess you'll be one of the people who will figure out if we did it successfully or not when it comes out next year! It was a tricky balance. You don't want it to be kooky. I mean, I like steampunk, but I don't think that's right either, for a movie like that.

At a certain point we got it. "This is our movie, this is not our movie," and it came quicker. It's all about world-building. I know that's a phrase that's overused, it's like a buzz phrase for filmmaking and video games, but it's kind of true in some way. We are building slices of a world for people to peek into and hopefully be transported into. With Jungle Book that was absolutely our main mission, at least my main mission, was to create a world that was believable, but also fantastic, but not so far that it became Malificent. I'm not knocking Malificent, it's just a different kind of movie. We wanted to have real physics in a real world.

I think The Dark Tower is kind of the same. I mean, The Dark Tower is so different from The Jungle Book, but I applied a lot of the same theory behind the design of it in terms of trying to make things more real and not go too far in different directions. It doesn't lean too far horror or too far this way or that way. Hopefully it works. I think it does, but we'll see.

Quint: Perfect, thanks a lot for you time! Oh, and if you happen to have any of Roland's guns laying around and need a home for 'em you know where to send them.

Christopher Glass: (laughs) I think they're all spoken for!

[Glebe]

Ron Howard & Brian Grazer On The Beatles, 'Dark Tower' And 30 Years Together.

Seeing as Roland

Spoiler alert

has the Horn of Eld

[close]

in this adaptation and also considering that, in any case, the books span several parallel universes, I would say that leaves a lot of justifiable leeway to make changes. It's all gorn meta.

[Glebe]

Good news, everyone!

The Dark Tower TV series will adapt Stephen King's Wizard and Glass.

[BritishHobo]

Yesssss. Good method of getting it out of the way, as its position in the book series served as such a horrific stumbling block in terms of pacing. The plot's barely even gotten underway before King has you reading a flashback that's almost as long as the first three books combined. A potential second film, presuming Jake ends up fully drawn at the end of this one, would be free to get all the way to the start of Wolves.

It'll also serve as a neat way of keeping the franchise fresh and present inbetween films. A season between second and third films could cover The Wind Through The Keyhole,and maybe even delve into some backstory for Eddie, Susannah and Jake.

I'm so excited.

[Glebe]

The Dark Tower film is being postponed to July 28.

Ah phooey.

[BritishHobo]

There you are, Glebe! They done a trailer and all what was leaked and has been taken down (lots of green-screens and unfinished CGI), and that cool Charlie the Choo-Choo book that was an exclusive bit of merchandise available at Comic-Con is getting a general release on November 22nd. We were so close to release! Finally! And now, this delay. It's a bloody rollercoaster, this'un.

[Bazooka]

I know it won't be in this film but Blaine The Pain Train should be voiced by Paul O'Grady.

[Glebe]

There you are, Glebe! They done a trailer and all what was leaked and has been taken down (lots of green-screens and unfinished CGI), and that cool Charlie the Choo-Choo book that was an exclusive bit of merchandise available at Comic-Con is getting a general release on November 22nd. We were so close to release! Finally! And now, this delay. It's a bloody rollercoaster, this'un.

You sure, BH? Cos I usually straight on it with the old movie news.

I know it won't be in this film but Blaine The Pain Train should be voiced by Paul O'Grady.

Apparently King himself wants to voice Blaine when (if?) they get round to it.

[Glebe]

New 'The Dark Tower' Image Finds the Gunslinger and the Man in Black Face-to-Face.

Trailer, lads. Trailer.

[Cerys]

Hoo boy!  I'm getting chills :)

[Glebe]

Still no trailer, but anyhoo...

Matthew McConaughey Talks 'Gold,' Unbranding and New Twists in a Singular Career.

In 2008 you turned down a reported $15 million to star in a big-screen reboot of the TV series Magnum P.I., an intended franchise. More recently, you've been offered major superhero parts including the lead in* Doctor Strange* and the villain in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. There was talk of you playing beach-bum detective Travis McGee in The Deep Blue Good-By, meant to be a big-screen adaptation based on John D. MacDonald's novels. But you've stepped up to The Dark Tower, based on Stephen King's series of novels, in which you play a sharply dressed destroyer of worlds.

I like Guardians of the Galaxy, but what I saw was "It's successful, and now we've got room to make a colorful part for another big-name actor." I'd feel like an amendment. The Dark Tower script was well written, I like the director and his take on it, and I can be the creator, the author of the Man in Black—a.k.a. the Devil—in my version of this Stephen King novel. We've done the first one. It's a fantastic thriller that takes place in another realm, an alternate universe, but it's very much grounded. For instance, the gunslinger's weapon isn't a lightsaber or something; it's a pistol. I enjoyed approaching my character as if I were the Devil having a good time, getting turned on by exposing human hypocrisies wherever he finds them.

New poster:

[Glebe]

This is out in a few months and there's still no trailer...

[Glebe]

Quint saw the first Dark Tower footage at CinemaCon and says it's kind of a fuckin' bummer.

I don't like the sound of some of what's described there.

[phantom_power]

It seems that he might be too close to the source material to have a proper perspective of the film

[Bazooka]

It seems that he might be too close to the source material to have a proper perspective of the film

I think anyone who has read the series will be by default, it's a long story so the setting and characters have already been established in your head not just from the first book but all the way the final book, King is great at setting the scene. The new IT film, it will be hard to watch without comparing it to the mini series let alone the book.

[mothman]

"Ain't-It-Cool-News: You don't have to write like a self-satisfied entitled twat to work here, but it helps!"

[Glebe]

Not writing it off by any means, but a couple of things described there - like

Spoiler alert

the doorways becoming Stargate portals

[close]

- sound well iffy. By the way - and this is probably why there's no trailer yet - the fucking thing has been delayed yet again.