Picture: http://www.projectcasting.com
It seems the beleaguered The Dark Tower movie is once again back in production. Excited fans took to Twitter in droves after Stephen King himself tweeted the cast announcement for two of the major roles. This was quickly followed by some slightly cryptic banter elsewhere More specifically, in the Twitter world of Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.
All of this has been taken to suggest Matthew McConaughey to be playing the role of Randall Flagg, and Idris Elba taking up the oversized revolvers of the gunslinger, Roland Deschain.
Following this brief exchange, some fans raised concerns over the change of race for this character, since as fans will know, racial tension between some of the main characters is a feature of the story in the second of the Dark Tower series, but the overall casting is close to perfect. McConaughey as the charming, smiley and slightly disconcerting Flagg, and Elba as the stoic, cold and unstoppable Roland could work exceptionally well, given both actors have shown themselves more than capable of these traits in their previous work.
Changes to the books are inevitable, and in this case even advisable, given the reaction to how the book series ended, so casting like this is very good news indeed. Let’s hope this isn’t another false start for what could be an amazing series of films.
Pete Wilkinson is a wanderer in many worlds, one minute holding back the Shadow in Middle-Earth, and Piloting Starships the next. But not in Middle-Earth, of course. That would be silly. Follow Pete on Twitter @BadRalfus.
