The Legacy Of The Gunslinger: New Dark Tower Featurette

Fans of Stephen King are no strangers to his books being adapted into feature films.  Good or bad, the big screen versions of his paperback stories have usually netted pretty good box office returns, and Sony is hoping to cash in on the next film, The Dark Tower.

A new almost 2 minute long featurette was released just a little bit ago from Sony Pictures, with leads Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey talking about their respective characters, as well as a brief appearance by King:

“The Dark Tower has always been important to me,” King says during the featurette, hopefully meaning this visual storytelling of his work will live up to his ideals.  Dreamcatcher, Pet Sematary, IT, anyone?

The Dark Tower was first published in 1892, now encompasses 9 books and a comic book prequel series published by Marvel comics. The series follows the last Gunslinger, Roland, and his quest to find The Man In Black and ultimately, The Dark Tower. It was originally 5 short stories that King put together, taking him 12 years to ‘complete’, and being called his magnum opus.

From the majority of the early trailers and released images, sure seems like The Dark Tower will be following “The Gunslinger”, the first novel in the series.  In July 2016, director Nikolaj Arcel confirmed that the Dark Tower film would be a sequel to the novels as well as a direct adaptation, with Roland The Gunslinger in the next cycle of his journey to the Tower.

If you missed the first trailer’s release, we’ve got you covered:

Directed by Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, The Truth About Men), The Dark Tower starts Idris Elba as The Gunslinger, Matthew McConaughey as The Man In Black, Katheryn Winnick (Vikings) as Laurie Chambers, Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) as Tirana, Jackie Earle Haley as Sayre, and Nicholas Hamilton (also appearing in the upcoming remake of IT) as Lucas Hansen.

It’s set to shoot it’s way into theaters on August 4th, 2017.