The Dark Tower

[The NZA]

Idris Elba frontrunner to play Roland Deschain In 'The Dark Tower' films

 

 

 

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures and Media Rights Capital may just have found the linchpin for The Dark Tower, the Stephen King novel series set in a world woven with magic and revolving around the gunslinger Roland Deschain. I’m told that Idris Elba has emerged as the frontrunner to play Deschains, and he would square off against Matthew McConaughey, who’s in talks to play the villainous Man In Black. Nikolaj Arcel is directing.

 

 

There is no deal yet, and nobody would comment for the story. But this would give Elba that long awaited star vehicle, coming after all of the speculation of whether the 007 franchise would install an actor of color into the iconic James Bond role. King wrote the character as white–at least that is how he is depicted in the book cover illustrations–but in Elba they get a top actor who has shown in the BBC series Luther and other works that he is a movie star with swagger. And that makes him an ideal choice to play Deschain. The recent discussions have surrounded Elba and Javier Bardem (who circled a previous version of the project), and really, it would be hard to argue either star brightens up what is shaping up to be a most intriguing iteration of a franchise that had many false starts at Universal and then at Warner Bros.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Axels

[Iambaytor]

On one hand this is a beg get for Elba (assuming this movie ever gets made ((it wont))), on the other hand I kind of feel bad that every major role the guy gets optioned for there's this unspoken statement that he has to prove he's "not too black" to play it.

[alive she cried]

I've only read the first tpb adaptation of this (actually pretty good), so I don't have extensive knowledge of this series. But from what I understand it's a Sci-fi-Fantasy-Western story. Why can't a black guy be in that universe?

 

But yeah, we need to move past the original race of characters and just look for great actors (which Elba no doubt is), unless race is important to the character/it would be ridiculous to change the race due to historical/geographical reasons ala like Black Panther, Captain America, Michael Corleone etc. (modern day) James Bond doesn't come in to that category.

[Iambaytor]

Oh there's absolutely no reason that Roland can't be black and Idris Elba is a great choice to play him, I just imagine he occasionally gets tired of having to be the face of racial equality in movie casting.

[Keth]

((it wont)))

 

 

 

Are the comics of the novels good?

[Da Cap'n 2099]

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by alive she cried
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