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‘The Dark Tower’ Film’s Release Date Has Been Moved Back Again

By Lawrence Arboleda
Published on: 00:49 PST, Mar 31, 2017

The Dark Tower film’s release date has been delayed yet again, but that shouldn’t be much cause for worry as it’s being moved back just a week — August 4 to be exact.

Entertainment Weekly broke the news just a couple of days after the trailer for IT was released online and revived our irrational fear of clowns once again. So, as you can tell, Stephen King has been on the news a lot lately.

A Sony representative reportedly told EW that the company “will not move” the film’s release date again, explaining that the delay was done to give the July 28 release date slot to The Emoji Movie, a film targeted for children. This, the rep says, should give kids more time to catch the movie before school starts back up again. The site also reports that the full trailer for The Dark Tower film will arrive soon.

This isn’t the first time the release date for The Dark Tower film was delayed. The film adaptation of Stephen King’s fantasy series was originally slated for February 17. Before long, it was announced that the film was moved back to July 28, which raised not a few eyebrows considering no single trailer has been released with only three months to go. Fans of the novels, however, were more than thrilled when a new film poster (which advertised the July 28 release date) was released a week ago.

The Dark Tower movie stars Idris Elba as Roland the Gunslinger, the remaining member of a group of knights from Mid-World, a realm somehow connected to our own. Roland the Gunslinger is on a quest to find the elusive Dark Tower. But before he can find his Holy Grail, he needs to find the mysterious man in black (Matthew McConnaughey), whom he follows in the desert.

The film’s delay could be attributed to the amount of ambition surrounding the project. Doing justice to a fantasy series that spans eight books can be difficult, but it can be even more daunting to capture the project’s scale and breadth. A lot is riding on the film adaptation’s success, especially since Sony is also planning a Dark Tower TV series. According to Game Spot, the Dark Tower show will be an adaptation of Stephen King’s Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in the Dark Tower book series.

Despite the film’s numerous delays, it’s looking like the wait will be worth it. This week, Sony showed the first footage of The Dark Tower film to theater owners at CinemaCon. The reactions, according to Entertainment Weekly, have been overwhelmingly positive. This is even more impressive on account of reports saying that the effects in the trailer were still unfinished.

“‘Dark Tower’ footage shows an arrogant Matthew McConaughey catching a bullet fired by Idris Elba and saying ‘The Tower will fall,'” tweets Dave McNary, a writer for Variety.

“The Dark Tower has a truly epic feel. Solid visuals. Action is handled well and there are King nods everywhere. I’m very, very encouraged,” tweets Germain Lussier, an entertainment reporter for Gizmodo and io9.

“Dark Tower first look showed us some early action with unfinished visuals. A cool sequence involving Gunslinger shooting via hearing alone,” writes Peter Sciretta, the owner and editor of Slashfilm.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series spans eight novels, which were published between 1982 and 2012.

[Featured Image by Sony]

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