Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey team up for Stephen King's long-awaited adaptation of his magnum opus, The Dark Tower
Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey have confirmed that they will star in the film adaptation of Stephen King's magnum opus The Dark Tower, and honestly... this is the best news we've heard all week.
Stephen King confirmed the news on his Twitter account, writing the opening line of his famous 1982 novel, 'It's official: The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. #DarkTowerMovie @McConaughey @IdrisElba.'
What followed was an adorable back and forth between Idris and Matthew, as Idris tweeted, '.@McConaughey you have one new follower. #DarkTowerMovie', with Matthew responding in kind, '.@idriselba come and get me, I look forward to it. #DarkTowerMovie'
The two handsome and talented fellas definitely seem to have a Twitter chemistry, which bodes well for the fantasy/horror/Western hybrid that is The Dark Tower. Idris plays the lead role of Roland Deschain, a gunslinger who's tasked with a quest to save his dying world of Mid-World by reaching the Dark Tower that stands between time and space.
Matthew will play the the Man In Black, the ultimate immortal baddie who also seeks the tower to rule over the entire world, he is pursued by Roland who's determined to stop him.
So your regular good guy vs bad guy saga then...
Idris' casting may come as a surprise to fans of the series, as Stephen King has previously admitted that he imagined Clint Eastwood in the role. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, 'I loved the Spaghetti Westerns and all those widescreen close-ups of his face... I thought, ‘That’s my Roland.' In fact, the illustrations for the novel clearly used Clint as their jumping off point, judging from the drawings' eerie likeness to the actor.
Source: IGN.com
But while Stephen was inspired by Clint, he revealed 'As the years went by, the character became a more particular individual in my own mind, He wasn’t Eastwood anymore. He was just … Roland.'
And Stephen definitely seems happy with the cast, telling EW, 'What I have to go back to is this: We have Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, two great actors. You’ve got a great production team and Akiva Goldsman as the primary script writer. The team is in place, so we’ll hope for the best.' He also previously tweeted in 2015 that 'To me, the color of the gunslinger doesn't matter. What I care about is how fast he can draw...'
So with Idris taking on the lead, does this mean the suave actor is officially out of the running for James Bond?
With Daniel Craig admitting that Spectre may be his last film in the iconic tux, Idris has been considered the fan favourite to take on the role (though Daniel has other ideas...), yet The Dark Tower's story spans eight novels, and the studio, Sony Pictures, plans to have the film start a whole new franchise à la Harry Potter.
Surely though, he can do both? We can but dream...