Sony has been pretty quiet in when it comes to talking about the upcoming Dark Tower movie. We’ve found a few scraps of information here and there, along with some photo’s from the filming days, but the only direct information from Sony has been a change in the release date; being pushed back from Feb 17 to July 28, 2017. Otherwise they’ve kept shtum about the whole affair.

That was until a few hours ago when a movie release poster surfaced:

So far I’ve not managed to find the official source for this, so the sceptic in me is being a little cautious, but all things point to

ComingSoon.net as being the first to show it.

It’s a great poster of high quality work, so is very likely the real deal.

UPDATE: With Sai King, Idris Elba, and Tom Taylor all tweeting the image this morning, we now know this is official. See below to read what they said.

Earlier in the week Sony announced that principle filming had started on their Dark Tower movie franchise – this made for a great birthday present for yours truly!

I guess with such a big franchise Sony are unlikely to want any photo’s or other info leaked until later in the year, but still, I have my fingers crossed they’ll tease us with something soon.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the Dark Tower. Just days after the announcement that Idris Elba will play the lead role, Variety are claiming that the role of Jake Chambers will be taken up by the mostly unknown youngster, Tom Taylor (BBC’s Doctor Foster).

If you thought the casting for the Dark Tower was becoming a bit strange (first casting a Brit in the lead role), then certainly casting another Brit in the role of a New York kid is probably the strangest news yet! Maybe the recent invasion of British actors into big budget productions such as Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, has the DT folks thinking it’ll work for this movie too. Who knows, though I’m not convinced myself.

Over the last few months there’s been various unofficial announcements for who will take on the roles of the Gunslinger and the Man in Black in the Dark Tower movies. It’s been interesting to follow the media, especially the controversy around the choice for that lead role, but finally we’ve received an official announcement. On March 1, 2016, Stephen King himself tweeted:

It’s official: The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. #DarkTowerMovie @McConaughey @IdrisElba

So there you have it, our two main protagonist are cast: Idris Elba will take on the role of Roland Deschain, and Matthew McConaughey will be his nemesis, the Man in Black.

This last week brought some interesting casting news, and perhaps the final indication we need that Sony are really going ahead with their Dark Tower movie franchise. The news broke on Monday that Matthew McConaughey was offered the lead role of The Gunslinger.

“Multiple individuals familiar with the situation”, leaked the news to TheWrap^*, so we should perhaps take this information with a pinch of salt until we get something more official from a Sony or Imagine Entertainment representative.

The individuals are saying that McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, HBO’s True Detective) was not only offered the lead role, but also that of the Man in Black, and they’re saying that he’s actually leaning toward that role! You’d think the lead role of Roland would hold a stronger appeal, but it’s not unusual for actors to prefer more villainous roles, and of course the commitment would be somewhat less than that of the Gunslinger.

This is the first real news regarding casting since Sony took over the project back in April, but with the January 2017 release date just a little over a year away, they need to get a move on.

What!?! Yep, in a recent press release by Sony, they announced that the first installment of the Dark Tower franchise, “The Gunslinger”, will hit cinema’s on January 13 February 17, 2017.

What? When? Where? How?

At this time there is very little known about this; we don’t know who will play Roland, or any of the other characters. Originally Javier Bardem, and later Russell Crowe, were suggested to take on the role of the Gunslinger, and at one point Aaron Paul was in talks with Ron Howard for the role of Eddie Dean.

We have an interesting development on the Dark Tower movie adaptation; Sony have just announced their intent to team up with MRC to finance the movie. Only time will tell if this has any legs to it, but it does look very interesting, and possibly gives us confidence that Sony will see it through.

What’s make Sony’s involvement so interesting is that chairman Tom Rothman was hired to find a global franchise they can get behind to get them on a par with studios like Disney, with their Star Wars and Marvel series, and Paramount with their Transformers run of movies and spinoffs.

This all makes for very interesting news in regards to the Dark Tower because if Sony/MRC are planning to compete on that level, then they’ll need to put a lot of funding and effort to making it into a long running franchise. Howard’s original plan of several movies plus a TV series must still be on the cards.

But what of Ron Howard?

Yesterday, while over on the Comic Book Movie website, I came across an interesting article regarding the release of some Dark Tower concept artwork by illustrator Gregory Hill (who previously worked on “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”).

Hill was working with Ron Howard for several months during the Universal phase before the project was shut down, and he recently updated his portfolio with eight pieces of concept art along with a couple of fly-through videos of a computer generated Tull.

The interwebs has been a hive of activity over the last couple days as two new Dark Tower quotes surfaced. In all honesty, there’s really nothing here of any substance or anything that we don’t already know. Still, let’s take a look at what it’s all about.

A couple of days back at the Sundance Film Festival, Ain’t It Cool News met up with Aaron Paul and asked him about his interest with the Dark Tower;

I’ve had a ton of meetings on that. I just had a general sit down with Ron Howard, who is a huge fan of [Breaking Bad], which is such a crazy thing to even think that Ron Howard even knows who I am. They’re definitely planning on making it.

Welcome back, my friends to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend! Come inside! Come inside!

And so the Dark Tower spectacle goeth on.

If you we’re hoping for some breaking news – headlines proclaiming that Ron Howard has started principal photography on the Dark Tower – well, perhaps you’d better go get back under the covers and take a long old snooze.

During the recent Rush premier in London, Empire Magazine’s Chris Hewitt caught up with Ron and inquired on the progress of the adaptation. A link to the audio can be found below but for your enjoyment, I’ve transcribed the part we’re interested in.