EW to explore Stephen King’s The Dark Tower in upcoming issue

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

It's an event that many Stephen King readers were probably doubting would ever happen – the actors playing Roland Deschain and The Man in Black in a cinematic adaptation of the author's epic Dark Tower saga are sharing the cover of an issue of Entertainment Weekly. The challenge of bringing King's series to the screen seemed insurmountable for a while there, but now a movie is in production and THE DARK TOWER is set to reach theatres thirty-five years after the first novel in the saga, The Gunslinger, was originally published.

The actors are Idris Elba as Roland and Matthew McConaughey (showing off his long fingernails) as The Man in Black, and they're not on the cover of just any Entertainment Weekly issue, but of a special double issue, the July 22/29 edition.

Within this issue, EW will be sharing information they gleaned from a visit to the film's set while it was shooting in Cape Town, South Africa (the production has since moved on to shooting action scenes on the streets of New York City).

THE DARK TOWER content will include:

– Exclusive photos, showing the vast plains of Mid-World, the shadowy Dixie Pig hideaway of the demons who infest our world, and the visions of a boy named Jake Chambers (Tom Holloway) who is either the key to saving the mythic Tower or the instrument of its destruction.

– Revelations from director Nikolaj Arcel (the Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair, and one of King’s lifelong Constant Readers) about where the story picks up, which elements from the novels are being explored – and which are being left out.

– Elba on the redemption story of Roland, who has “forgotten the face of his father” (or lost his way) in his relentless pursuit of the Man in Black. The actor also comments for the first time about race-swapping the Gunslinger, who until now has always been depicted as white.

– McConaughey on the loneliness of evil, the reasons his villain “reveres” the hero chasing him, and why The Man in Black has taken a real shine to present-day New York City.

– Finally, as an extra treat, King himself weighs in on the film, explains what he asked to change in the script, and provides new insight into how the Tower saga connects to some of his other books, like The Shining, The Stand, and one long-ago short story.

The issue will also feature a sneak peek at the new adaptation of King's IT that just recently started filming with Andy Muschietti at the helm.

This definitely sounds like something that King fans are going to want to pick up.

THE DARK TOWER will be released on February 17, 2017.