The Dark Tower Trailer is (Finally) Here and Trigger Happy

The Dark Tower Trailer is (Finally) Here and Trigger Happy

Gather your ka-tet and remember the faces of your fathers, the long awaited trailer for The Dark Tower film is here.

Roland (Idris Elba) the last of a knightly order of gunslingers races against The Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) to the interdimensional Dark Tower. Meanwhile, young New Yorker Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), establishes a psychic connection to Roland’s world. The boy is then enlisted on the quest to protect the very thing that keeps his world, Roland’s world, and all worlds together. If The Tower falls, so does everything.

And by the looks of it, it’s not going to be a slow burn. Based on the trailer alone, it would seem the first installment of the film franchise is jumping into more than just the first novel of the series. We have Elba as Roland spanning a desert waste much like in book one, The Gunslinger, but then there’s Jake entering a portal in what is very likely the Dutch Hill Mansion from book three, The Wastelands.

The macabre fantasy epic from Stephen King, spanning seven books and a quasi-prequel, has been in the works for a live action adaptation for some time. Dating back to 2007, it was unclear whether the adaption was going to be a TV or film series. Switching between creative hands from J.J. Abrams to Ron Howard (who still remains as a producer), fans feared the project fell into limbo.

As for newcomers of the series, the trailer makes it a point to establish the plot right away, and throw in some ballistic action. Despite the strange pacing and a ton of questions, long time book fans get some satisfyingly epic shots of The Tower, The Beams, and horrifying interdimensional monsters (and what may be a brief reference to the Crimson King). Not to mention a few Easter eggs hinting at The Shining and It, only appropriate for a series that is the pinnacle crossover of all of King’s essential works.

The Dark Tower is set to release this August 4, with Nikolaj Arcel in the director’s chair, and a team of producers including Ron Howard and Stephen King himself.