Chris here. With the long (lonnnnnnnnng) road to production, reshuffling of realease dates, and confusing messages on a spin off series, I can't blame you if you've lost track of Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower. The franchise hopeful has tradeed hands from Ron Howard to A Royal Affair's Nikolaj Arcel, and lost a few potential stars along the way. But with a looming summer release, it's about time to start seeing some of the goods (even if those set photos of a leather-clad Idris Elba should have kept this at the top of our minds). At long last here is the first poster, with some thoughts after the jump...
- With only four months until release, I'd honestly have guessed this would be pushed back yet again - but no, there's that release date right there. (I still wouldn't be surprised...)
- With Elba taking on hero Roland Deschain, we finally get the Idris Elba franchise we've been begging for. While Matthew McConaughey's star is currently fading, playing the evil Man in Black could get him off his broken record track of late. BONUS POINTS to Sony for casting them as such and not in opposite roles.
- For better or worse, Inception has proven to be one of the most influential films of late, at least in terms of marketing. Why does every movie want me to think I'll get dizzy watching it?
- Oh wait. There's a light tower in the space between buildings. I see what you did there.
- Ok, but how much are they going to cut out of the sprawling series? We're talking thousands of pages, and we still have no official word on spin off series. Even the most concise of King novels (editing is not his strong suit) lose cunks of plot in translation.
- After ripping the author off has become cool again thanks to Stranger Things, it will be fun to have the master's work reclaimed by this and It... provided the end results are strong.
The Dark Tower opens on July 28. What are your thoughts?