Gather your Ka-tet and tell them that our long journey to The Dark Tower is almost over…but the battle for the fate of the multiverse has just begun! After months of teasing, the first trailer for Stephen King‘s magnum opus has arrived, and it clearly pays tribute to its influences while paving the way for a final showdown between Idris Elba‘s Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey‘s Walter Padick, a.k.a. the Man in Black!
King has often stated that the inspiration for Roland came from Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name from the classic spaghetti westerns of director Sergio Leone. That’s why this trailer is set to music box theme from Leone’s For a Few Dollars More, as composed by a true living legend of film music, Ennio Morricone.
As for the movie itself, it serves as both a sequel and a remake to the eight novels written by King. That said, it’s clearly not an exact translation of the story that we know and love. The trailer largely takes place from the POV of Jake Chambers, a young boy in our world who comes to the startling realization that the legend of the Gunslinger is all too real, and so too is the evil of the Man in Black.
Along the way, Jake meets and bonds with Roland, as they learn the devastating consequences that will occur if they fail to protect the Dark Tower from their mutual enemy. While there appear to have been several liberties taken with King’s original tale, Elba does delver one of Roland’s most memorable lines from the novels:Â “I kill with my heart.” It’s also fitting that we see Roland pull off a near impossible shot to save Jake as an example of killing with his heart.
The Dark Tower will hit theaters on Friday, August 4, and we’ve got some brand new images from the film in our gallery below!
What did you think about the first trailer for The Dark Tower? Let us know in the comment section below!
Images: Sony Pictures
