The Dark Tower (upcoming film)

The Dark Tower is an upcoming 2017 American science fantasy western horror film directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel, based on the series of novels of the same name by Stephen King. The film is a quasi-sequel to the The Dark Tower book series, following the ending of The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.

The film has been stated to be not a typical adaptation, but more of a new take on the series. Additionally, King has tweeted a photo of the Horn of Eld with the caption "Last Time Around", which is related to a scene from the end of the final book and Arcel said that fans will know the movie is a sequel to the book series. The film is set to be released on July 28, 2017.

Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is a young 11-year-old adventure seeker who discovers clues about another dimension called Mid-World. Upon following the mystery, he is spirited away to Mid-World where he encounters the lone frontiersman knight Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), who is on a quest to reach the "Dark Tower" that resides in End-World and reach the nexus point between time and space that he hopes will save Mid-World from extinction. But with various monsters and a vicious sorcerer named Walter Padick (Matthew McConaughey) hot on their trail, the unlikely duo find that their quest may be difficult to complete.

The project has been ongoing since 2007 with periodical reports and official announcements, but nothing has materialized as of yet. To date, the proposed film adaptation has gone through three major phases of planning: initially with J. J. Abrams from 2007 to 2009, then with Ron Howard from 2010 to 2015, and currently with Arcel with Howard remaining in a producing role.

IGN Movies first reported in early February 2007 that a film adaptation of The Dark Tower series was in the works. J. J. Abrams, co-creator of the television series Lost, was supposedly attached to produce and direct. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, who co-created Lost with Abrams, optioned The Dark Tower from King for a reported amount of nineteen dollars, a number that mysteriously recurs throughout the series. According to issue #923 of Entertainment Weekly, King "is an ardent supporter of [Lost] and trusts Abrams to translate his vision" into a film franchise with Lindelof being "the leading candidate to write the screenplay for the first installment." It was around this same time that Marvel Comics launched their graphic novel adaptation of The Dark Tower with The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born. Later, in March 2007, Abrams noted in an interview with Wired that the project is "something that we are just now talking about with Stephen, so it's too early for me to say that we're even officially doing it yet just because the thing is in the early stages of discussion."