Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’: Dozens Of New Set Photos And HUGE Plot Info Revealed


A ton of new info has been released about the upcoming movie based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, some of it in the form of never-before-seen photos from the set and some from a recent tweeted photo featuring lead actor Idris Elba along with ex-director Ron Howard and current director Nikolaj Arcel.

The 24 set photos, which are viewable exclusively at Gothamist, depict a wide range of elements from The Dark Tower‘s set, from images of Elba in his Gunslinger costume showing off his dual revolvers, to signs hanging outside cafes from Stephen King’s imagined Dark Tower universe to large chunks of styrofoam styled and painted to look like bit of exploded wall that will obviously be used as rubble on the set.

Viewing the diverse imagery the photos portray is a great way to get hyped for the upcoming Stephen King adaptation, as it reminds those who have read the Dark Tower novels – which make up over 30,000 pages in total – how incredibly expansive and immersive the world Stephen King created is. It also does well at introducing newcomers to that incredible world before Arcel’s take on Stephen King’s work is released.

It should be noted that, although filming for the Dark Tower movie began in South Africa, the set photos recently snapped were in New York City. Could it be that, since Arcel took over as director and a new script for the Stephen King film was adopted back in June and April, respectively, the South Africa filming location has been scrapped? Or, perhaps more likely, maybe South Africa was the shooting location for the scenes set in Stephen King’s more exotic locales, like deserts, caves, or jungles, while NYC is the setting for a different set of scenes.

The question is, what “different set of scenes” could that be? True, a portion of the series takes place in New York City – it is the hometown of Jake Chambers, one of Roland’s travel companions – but those parts do not include the character of the Gunslinger. However, Idris Elba is shown in costume in the New York set photos, which strongly suggests that Stephen King’s iconic protagonist will be present in NYC in the Dark Tower movie.

The Inquisitr previously reported that photos of Matthew McConaughey, who plays the Stephen King adventure’s main antagonist, in New York City have surfaced as well.

Roland Deschain’s presence in New York in the film means that that the plot of the movie will deviate a lot from the one Stephen King laid out in the written series. This is not new info in itself, since Stephen King himself has said that the film is only inspired by, and not a straightforward adaptation of, his books.

It is interesting, however, to consider what that deviation might entail, and, from the look of things, it might be that Roland is coming to New York City. Seeing the Gunslinger in a more familiar setting would certainly be interesting, as long as some of the more mysterious locations, like those seen in Stephen King’s mid-world or media res, are retained in the flick.

There is no question that at least part of the film will be set in the imagined universes Stephen King conceived for The Dark Tower, a fact that Idris Elba alluded to in a recent interview he did with Jon Favreau when he called some of the “worlds” his character explores in the movie “quite fantastical.” It remains to be seen what the balance of imagined worlds to real world will be, though.

Apart from the recently taken set photos showing off scenes that appear to be from NYC, we know that the Dark Tower crew is currently stationed in The Big Apple because of a tweet uploaded on July 3 by Ron Howard. The tweet contains a photo of Howard, who is co producing The Dark Tower, with Elba and director Nikolaj Arcel. The photo is captioned “I joined @idriselba & director Nikolaj Arcel in #NYC for #DarkTowerMovie production Dream Team 4 a Dream Project.”

It sounds like Howard is very psyched for this movie. How about you? Leave your thoughts about the movie-fication of Stephen King’s vast Dark Tower universe in the comments section below. Hopefully it will make Stephen King himself proud.

[Photo by DC/Media Punch/IPX]

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