Home Entertainment Matthew McConaughey wanted for lead role in THE DARK TOWER

Matthew McConaughey wanted for lead role in THE DARK TOWER

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The Dark Tower is an epic work of fiction that took decades to realize. For a while there, it looked like that second part was also going to apply to its feature film adaptation. Stephen King’s fantasy book series is a daunting sprawling meta-story that incorporates characters and events from several of his other literary works, so it’s no wonder that Hollywood has floundered a bit in bringing it to the big screen, but with Danish writer-director Nikolaj Arcel (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair) set to adapt the story, things appear to finally be moving in the right direction.

And according to the latest reports, the production may just have found its leading man. Whether he’s a good or bad leading man though is not clear. To explain, The Wrap is reporting that producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and production studio Sony have begun talks with Matthew McConaughey to play Roland Deschain, the last of his world’s heroic “gunslingers” who sets out with a motley crew from various worlds to find the eponymous Dark Tower, which stands as the nexus of all universes and which could bring about the destruction of the multiverse if it were to fall.

Standing in Roland’s way is a number of enemies, but most commonly through various times and places, from Roland’s childhood to his far off future, is Randall Flagg aka the Man in Black, “an accomplished sorcerer and a devoted servant of the Outer Dark” who seeks to wreak havoc wherever he goes. And who may also be played by Matthew McConaughey. At least that’s according to THR.

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It would seem that Sony is so big on McConaughey that they have offered him both roles, with the actor having to choose which side of the moral divide he wants to reside. Both publications do point out though that talks are still in the very early stages though, so there’s nothing concrete yet.

If this does work out though, I would seriously love to see McConaughey as Flagg. While I think he could make a decent Roland, he would make an incredible Man in Black. He has just enough crazy intensity, just enough boogeyman scariness, and just enough delectable charm to make Flagg one hell of a memorable villain, most of which may be wasted on the tragic but often morose Roland.

And of course there’s the fact that McConaughey has been tentatively linked to another Stephen King adaptation, The Stand, several times now, where he is rumoured to play… yep, you guessed it: Randal Flagg. It seems the universe really wants him to play this role.

In one earlier failed incarnation of this film adaptation, Jarvier Bardem was actually being eyed to play Roland and I still think he’s a great pick and would love it if producers were to look at him again. Plus, the possibility of having him face off with McConaughey in an epic tale of guns, sorcery, science-fiction and more sounds incredibly enticing.

Of course, the problem now is finding a decent way to bring that 8-book, 4000+ pages long epic tale of guns, sorcery and science-fiction to the screen somehow, and I’m still not sure just how they’re going to do that, especially since the initial highly ambitious and crazy expensive plan of having a trilogy of movies, each interspersed with a season of TV series, has been completely nixed. But I guess that’s why they don’t pay me the big bucks.

 

Last Updated: November 18, 2015

One Comment

  1. Ahhh man – these two as Roland and Randall would be epic!!

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