The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. With Sony Pictures Entertainment beginning to tackle the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, we could be very close to seeing the first line of The Gunslinger play out on film and television. Even better, Deadline reports that we might be meeting those men soon: Matthew McConaughey is in talks to play the Man in Black, with Idris Elba the latest frontrunner for the eponymous gunslinger, Roland Deschain.
Now, this is still rumored, as neither McConaughey nor Elba nor any producers have commented on the potential deal. But it would be fantastic for Elba to have the opportunity to build a franchise, especially one with such an established following, especially as it doesn’t seem he’ll get the opportunity to play the next James Bond. I’m a recent Elba convert; I’d enjoyed him in bit roles like Heimdall in the Thor movies, and on The Office forever ago, but now that I’ve finally started watching Luther, I’m fully onboard with Idris Elba in everything. Now, Deschain would be a tough character to crack: at times detached and unsympathetic, yet still possessing enough charisma and cunning to get by. Yep, all of that brings to mind DCI John Luther.
In the meantime, if you don’t know much about The Dark Tower series, check out our Weird West primer!
I would be thrilled to win this exciting box of reading adventure.
Thank goodness McConaughey is supposedly playing Walter/MIB rather than Roland, that was a bit unnerving when I first heard McConaughey was being looked at. He’d be a great Walter but a terrible Roland.
Since DT is set in a parallel world, there’s no reason it couldn’t be fully integrated and diverse, without the centuries of racial baggage we poor Earth-1 inhabitants have accumulated. There’s a bit of frontier-west-womenfolk in the kitchen, but not as much as there could have been, and several female characters kick all kinds of butt, so that should be no problem either. (In fact, now that I think about it, Dinky Earnshaw would very interesting played either as a woman or an LGBT character.)
Why does every story have to be “racially or sexually diverse” ?
The question is would they use contact lenses with CGI enhancement on the close-ups or CGI eye tinting in every shot? I favor contacts personally.
Roland just wouldn’t be Roland without the blue bombardier eyes.
@3. Because the real world is. Changing race or gender in adaption really is not that big of a deal unless the character’s race or gender was integral to the original. The only change would be to Roland and Otetta’s interactions, but the story would be the same, as would Roland’s character and character arc
@3, it doesn;t have to be, but we also don’t need to pretend that the old west was all white, or all anything else. and especially since this is not the old west. King did a reasonably good job creating diverse characters, and Roland is definitely white in the book (because someone once mentions having never seen a “brownie” before in reference to Susannah) but that doesn’t mean he needs to be white in the show/movie, if the best actor to portray his other characteristics is non-white.
King’s “old west” has a bit of sexism still, and this is used to advantage (at one point, Roland asks Susannah to “speak only when spoken to” because people will assume she is subordinate to him and might say things around her they wouldn’t say around him — it irritates her, but she understands the necessity, so they are using the peasant’s sexism against them.) But there are kick ass females as well, too, who are underestimated and then turn the tables, and I would kind of like to see the sexism left in and played with the way the book does.
On the other hand, other than an offhand comment here or there about people rarely having seen a black person, there would really be no harm to the story if it was cast without regard to race.
On the LGBT front, I’m not someone who insists on every movie and TV show representing every possible minority. But sometimes changing the source material works amazingly well (Dr. Watson in Elementary, for example). And thinking about DT, somehow the idea that Dinky would be different in more ways than just his psychic powers feels right to me. It would explain why he was so disaffected when he was recruited by agents of NCP/Sombra and why he didn’t really care that he was helping to destroy the universe until he became good friends with Ted and Sheemie. “Everything’s Eventual” shows that he is a loner, disaffected, picked on, and an easy mark for his recruiters, but it doesn’t really show why. He could use more motivation for first, helping destroy the world, then second, joining the rebellion (so to speak).
@5, “The only change would be to Roland and Otetta’s interactions“
I forgot about that. A lot of Detta Walker’s reactions to Roland and Eddie are based on very strong (and likely hard to swallow on modern TV) racial stereotypes that Detta both has and acts out. (In the story, that’s because Detta is a symptom of mental illness and is a sort of artificial construct. Odetta Holmes’ goody twoshoes limousine liberal persona is also something of an artificial construct, and maybe Susannah is the person she was always meant to be.) There’d have to be a big revision of Detta’s reactions to Eddie and Roland if Roland were played by a black actor.
I would imagine The Gunslinger also hates 40 degree days.
@7, Naw, Detta would just view Roland as a race traitor, just like she does Odetta.
In other news, YES I AM HERE FOR THIS.
Natalie, Elba is also great in RocknRolla and The Losers.
@9, yes, I was thinking the same thing, but that would lead to some very uncomfortable dialog. Does anyone in Hollywood have the b**ls to do it?
I wish the default for “racial diversity” in movies and tv didn’t go to black actors 90% of the time. Why not a leading latino or asian actor for Roland? Surely the bankers and showrunners in hollywood can find talented actors/actresses in these also minority ethnic groups if they really want to walk the walk of representing diversity rather than just give it lip service. Chinese were the ones who built the railroads the American West was built on. Why not have Roland be of asian origin? Latinos have as much history in the N.A. west as any white or black. Acting talent isn’t restricted to white or black ethnicity but judging from the two ethnic pools Hollywood consistently goes to for leading actor/actress roles they’re actions say it is.
Who says Odetta has to be black?
@12, Because unlike Roland, it is a defining aspect of her character
@11, Donnie Yen for Roland!
I hope they do cast him. I can’t wait to see him play the dopey, alcoholic version of himself as Steven King in the later entries.
@14, If we’re going for an Asian Roland, I think Kang-ho Song works.
@15, They only have the same eye color. Hell, King could probably still do it!
Here’s the thing about this…Elba is a wonderful actor and I’d love this, but Roland is pretty explictly EXACTLY CLINT EASTWOOD. I guess he’s probably getting too old to do it himself though, but seriously, that’s all I really want in life…
Isn’t Idris Elba pretty much the answer to any male casting opportunity? Yet for some reason, they all keep going to Benedict Cumberbatch instead.
You didn’t watch him in The Wire?
@3 Because people?