LOS ANGELES, Dec 11 — Both Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey have been approached to star in a cinematic adaptation of Stephen King classic “The Dark Tower”.
McConaughey, originally asked to read for the hero character of Roland Deschain, is understood to have switched and is instead discussing the possibility of playing the gunslinger’s nemesis, The Man in Black, notes TheWrap.
Elba, frequently suggested as a suitable successor to an otherwise all-white lineage of actors playing James Bond, is the man to play Deschain, in the eyes of Sony Pictures Entertainment and according to Deadline.
Sony Pictures, of course, had distributed the first four James Bond films of the Daniel Craig era, starting with “Casino Royale” in 2006 and ending with October 2015’s “Spectre”.
London-born Elba and Texas success McConaughey are linked in another way, through director Cary Fukunaga.
Fukunaga’s first TV project was the one that made him a cast-iron success. “True Detective” co-starred Matthew McConaughey, then already well into a rich vein of form that shows little sign of abating.
For his fourth feature film, Fukunaga allied with Netflix for the Oscar hopeful “Beasts of No Nation”, in which Elba stars as an African militia group Commandant.
McConaughey had previously been linked with the role of the Man in Black, Randall Flagg, for Warner Bros’ version of “The Stand”.
And both “The Stand” and “The Dark Tower” are, or at least at one point have been, developed with a view to airing TV series in conjunction with the feature film or films.
In the case of “The Dark Tower”, both Elba and McConaughey are clearly well adapted to film and TV roles, or perhaps even a combination of the two, depending on how crossover plans shake out.
A January 2017 date has been posted for a first film in a proposed “The Dark Tower” franchise; the Stephen King series runs to eight novels with another six short stories published as companion pieces. — AFP-Relaxnews
