'Dark Tower' release date news: promo image reveal proves production is still on for the dark fantasy film
It has been a long time coming for any updates on Sony's movie treatment on the novel "Dark Tower." But with a surprising image drop, the production seems to be quietly progressing for quite some time now, marching to a 2017 target release.
The dark fantasy film mined from Stephen King's novel of the same title has released a promo still first nabbed by Bloody Disgusting. In the snap, Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba intensely face off as the main game players from the novel — Walter Padick and Gunslinger Roland Deschain, respectively. Other than that, no accompanying detail or even a caption was provided with the photo.
"Dark Tower" also stars young actor Tom Taylor who plays Jake Chambers, an adventure seeker who finds himself in an alternate dimension called Mid-World. There he crosses paths with Deschain who in turn is on his way to find the Dark Tower located in End-World. The two then embarks on a trip full of danger brought about by countless monsters and evil sorcerer Man in Black. What is interesting in this premise is although it lifts the title from the Stephen King book, it is by no means a direct adaptation of it. Instead, it appears to be a side quest on Deschain's long history in trying to reach the mystical tower. As a result, the film and the novel go hand in hand together.
Production-wise, the project has gone through multiple hands in terms of steering the whole movie with a long history of being shelved and then retrieved. Directors like J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard were both attached to the film for quite some time until it finally landed on "Truth About Men" helmer Nikolaj Arcel's lap.
Given this, the release date has also suffered a lot with a handful of delays. The last one touted it to be moved from a February 2017 rollout to July with some extra few months to polish the whole project. One anonymous tipster who talked to Entertainment Weekly this year revealed that the budget has been a huge factor in the push and pull off the production.
"It's a very fiscally responsible budget, and trying to stay in budget to make money and stay profitable means the VFX won't be finished in time [for February]," the source shared. "Now that there's more time, they're not paying rush charges to get the effects where they need to be."
