Stephen King announces Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey will star in 'Dark Tower' movie

It looks like Roland of Gilead will get his day on the big screen after all. 

Stephen King has announced the primary casting for a film adaptation of The Dark Tower, which is projected to reach theaters in 2017. Idris Elba, of Luther and The Wire fame, will play the gunslinger Roland Deschain, chasing the man in black, Matthew McConaughey.  

The news makes it seem as though the long-gestating project, stuck for years in development vertigo, may actually see the light of day. 

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King's announcement coincided with an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, where the author discusses the process of bringing the Dark Tower series' eight books, various short stories and comic book adaptation to film. 

“The thing is, it’s been a looong trip from the books to the film,” King said. “When you think about it, I started these stories as a senior in college, sitting in a little shitty cabin beside the river in Maine, and finally this thing is actually in pre-production now... I’m delighted, and I’m a little bit surprised.”

The path of the beam for this western-fantasy hybrid project has been a long and slippery one. It was once to be a Ron Howard-backed, expansive empire of a franchise, told via at least three different movies and a complimentary movie series. 

But according to the interview, plans for the adaptation have changed. The Dark Tower will be a standalone movie, with only possibility for more to follow based on the success of the first film. 

It also won't begin with Dark Tower opener The Gunslinger, the most bare-bones book of King's series: “[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning, which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story,” King said.

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