Idris Elba & Matthew McConaughey Officially Join The Dark Tower

[Saippua]

How are they gonna do susannah in the story then? I dont know how theyve planned to rewrite all of that but it better be impressive, else i dont know why King would have approved it. Also it better be a series of movies, theres no way to fit the whole story in one. And i guess Roland dad has to be white aswell then, and his mother, and arthur eld aswell i suppose. I really dont get why they would change his race, besides maybe trying to cash in on free PR, Idris elba is a pretty good actor but hardly worth all the changes youd have to make just to have him in.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm cool with this, though I was kinda hoping Micheal K. Williams would have been picked for the Man in Black, if only for the sheer Irony. "Roland's coming"

I'm find with Micheal McConaughey playing the villian though.

Let's face it, Roland's race doesn't play into much at all in the books and if the worst that happens is they have to rewrite Susannah's character a little, so be it. They're gonna have to do some rewrites regardless(God I hope they rewrite a lot of Book 7, especially the final battle at the end).

I also hope they skip "Wind Through the Keyhole", to be honest, which feels like it exists because King needed a cash influx and little else.

 

[rcs619]

There are many people who are of the opinion that taking issue with casting a character as a different race when adapting to live action is something many are hypocrites on, as most are completly ok with it if it's a white person being turned into a minority, but not the other way around.

To be fair. White actors in Hollywood have *many* more casting opportunities than minorities, especially in genres like fantasy and science-fiction. White people can be everything from modern-day everymen, to space-captains, fantasy heroes or Egyptian gods. Minorities, they've just got less options across the board, and that's the issue a lot of people take with the whole 'whitewashing' thing.

Personally I'm of the opinion race only matters if it's important to the character, which means I'm a little disappointed in this but only because I just know for Suzannah the solution to her issue is to turn her from a black woman who hates whites to a white woman who hates blacks, and that's something that's been so played out in Hollywood there's no angle they could go with to not make it feel stale due to how often we see it.

Ehh, honestly they don't need to turn Susannah white if they keep the Detta thing. Eddie is still almost certainly going to be white, and Roland is going to be just as utterly clueless to 1960's American race-issues as he always was. Honestly, Detta would probably hate a black Roland more for helping/working with Eddie than a white Roland just for being white.

Detta was a pretty fucked up lady, afterall.

 

[Mister K]

Oh, and it seems that BLACKwashing is totally fine.

Why wouldn't it be?

There are many people who are of the opinion that taking issue with casting a character as a different race when adapting to live action is something many are hypocrites on, as most are completly ok with it if it's a white person being turned into a minority, but not the other way around.

Personally I'm of the opinion race only matters if it's important to the character, which means I'm a little disappointed in this but only because I just know for Suzannah the solution to her issue is to turn her from a black woman who hates whites to a white woman who hates blacks, and that's something that's been so played out in Hollywood there's no angle they could go with to not make it feel stale due to how often we see it.

Hey, don't throw me in the same room as those guys. I dislike "whitewashing" as much as I dislike black, asian, hispanic and whatever else "washings" there are. As I said to JimB, I dislike it when characters are changed from their original portrayal.

 

[Imre Csete]

Well, I stopped caring about the books when it became a self-insertion fanfic, so Stephen King could write about his accident, in some weird, post-modern literature form of therapy. Atleast I didn't mind the ending, because I lost investment in the series by that point.

I'm still glad I've read it though, will be curious how it turns out.

 

[K12]

Oh, and it seems that BLACKwashing is totally fine.

Why wouldn't it be?

There are many people who are of the opinion that taking issue with casting a character as a different race when adapting to live action is something many are hypocrites on, as most are completly ok with it if it's a white person being turned into a minority, but not the other way around.

Personally I'm of the opinion race only matters if it's important to the character, which means I'm a little disappointed in this but only because I just know for Suzannah the solution to her issue is to turn her from a black woman who hates whites to a white woman who hates blacks, and that's something that's been so played out in Hollywood there's no angle they could go with to not make it feel stale due to how often we see it.

It could be fun to to have a black character who's racist to a different subset of black people. It'd be nice for Hollywood to acknowledge that "black people" are actually far more diverse than all other racial groups put together (genetically anyway). Honestly I've only gotten as far as reading "Gunslinger" and kind of forgot to read the rest of them so I have no idea if this would work.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

So we have Rust Cohle vs Stacker Pentecost. I can dig it.

 

[Zontar]

It could be fun to to have a black character who's racist to a different subset of black people. It'd be nice for Hollywood to acknowledge that "black people" are actually far more diverse than all other racial groups put together (genetically anyway). Honestly I've only gotten as far as reading "Gunslinger" and kind of forgot to read the rest of them so I have no idea if this would work.

It would be pretty hard to pull off since she's American and in the US blacks have a similar cultural melting-pot that whites do. If she was from Africa where there's plenty of racism between different African ethnic and cultural groups it could work, but she isn't so it wouldn't really make sense.

 

[Ukomba]

Stephen King thinks he looks like Idris Elba? Or did he forget the rather important plot point that Roland looks like him?

Also, are they race swapping Detta too? Because not sure her unproportionate racism towards Roland makes sense now.

Will they give Idris blue 'bombardier' contacts?

Are they ignoring the painting they used for a teaser in The Mist?

 

[JimB]

As I said to JimB, I dislike it when characters are changed from their original portrayal.

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about the revised version of the Gunslinger? If you're not familiar, a few scenes have been rewritten to make Roland less of a psychopath. The only one I remember off the top of my head is that the scenario is changed so shooting Allie isn't straight-up murder.

Speaking of making changes, maybe they can actually do something with Mordred this time. I have never seen a character get so much hype but do so little.

I wouldn't mind seeing his role given more importance either, but to be fair, Mordred was never the star of even his own story. He was just there as one more example of whom Roland is willing to kill in order to achieve his obsession.

 

[K12]

It could be fun to to have a black character who's racist to a different subset of black people. It'd be nice for Hollywood to acknowledge that "black people" are actually far more diverse than all other racial groups put together (genetically anyway). Honestly I've only gotten as far as reading "Gunslinger" and kind of forgot to read the rest of them so I have no idea if this would work.

It would be pretty hard to pull off since she's American and in the US blacks have a similar cultural melting-pot that whites do. If she was from Africa where there's plenty of racism between different African ethnic and cultural groups it could work, but she isn't so it wouldn't really make sense.

I agree, probably more effort than it's worth. I'd like to see it be pulled effectively though, maybe better to wait for a different film though.

 

[rcs619]

It would be pretty hard to pull off since she's American and in the US blacks have a similar cultural melting-pot that whites do. If she was from Africa where there's plenty of racism between different African ethnic and cultural groups it could work, but she isn't so it wouldn't really make sense.

You realize that different groups of black people in the US dislike eachother the same way different groups of white people do right? Suburbanites vs inner-city. City-folk vs rural. Rich vs Poor. Libs vs Conservatives. Yes, blacks are disproportionately concentrated within urban areas compared to whites, but that doesn't mean that they're one big group. I can assure you that a black guy from small-town Mississippi is from an entirely different culture than someone from inner-city Chicago or the suburbs of New York.

The US isn't really a perfect melting pot. It's more like a dozen smaller countries that share broad themes and ideals. Individual regional cultures (and their view on other sub-cultures within the US) vary wildly.

If you want to stick with 1960's era sorts of conflicts, well the black panthers and such had a whole different mindset than the more MLK-inspired civil rights groups. The concept of an "Uncle Tom" has been around for a while too.

Considering how wildly, irrationally racist Detta was against white people (Eddie literally described her as a caricature), I really doubt she would have anything but the worst kind of insults and disdain for a black person that was actually working with white people. So yeah, they could totally make a black Susannah/Odetta/Detta work. I still think that whole character is going to require some re-writing though.

 

[Mister K]

As I said to JimB, I dislike it when characters are changed from their original portrayal.

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about the revised version of the Gunslinger? If you're not familiar, a few scenes have been rewritten to make Roland less of a psychopath. The only one I remember off the top of my head is that the scenario is changed so shooting Allie isn't straight-up murder.

I'll be honest, I can't really say because I never read the 1980's version, only the revised one (from 2000s?). In theory, I disagree with changes. On practice, I cannot give you an answer, because if I didn't read it, how can I be allowed to compare?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I won't argue with this at all. Good acting is good acting, and it can transcend a role as written in a book quite well indeed.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I want to point out that this isn't the first time a white Stephen King character has been played by a black actor. That would be the character of "Red" in "The Shawshank Redemption", who actually was Irish in the original novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", rather than it being a joking response to where his nickname came from, but was played by Morgan Freeman in the movie.

Why am I pointing this out? Because I don't think anyone would argue that Morgan Freeman didn't absolutely nail the role. I see no reason why Idris Elba can't do the same. As for Matthew McConaughey, I haven't seen much of his acting, and he seems to be a bit of an average Joe, with not much remarkable about him in terms of appearance. In other words, just about perfect for Randall Flagg.

The whole "starting in media res"? That worries me quite a bit, and Stephen King's assurances that it will all be fine aren't really reassuring to me. This is the same guy who has said that he pretty much gives a free reign to directors and scriptwriters, saying that if an author didn't want his or her work changed, he or she should not agree to have their work adapted. Not that I disagree with him on principle, but that isn't the type of "hands-off" attitude that demonstrates any real concern for his work being adapted. Unless you try to use his name for a piece of crap like "Children of the Corn". Then he'll care.

 

[happyninja42]

Neat, wonder if Elba can/will do a Southern accent.

I'm very curious how they will handle Suzannah now, though.

Did the Gunslinger have a southern accent? It's been yeeeeaars since I read those books, but I don't recall him having a southern accent. I don't recall him being described as having an accent at all, or at least not one from Earth.

OT: I'm not sure how I feel about this, I just don't know how well a Dark Tower movie will be. The first few books were ok, bordering on pretty damn good. The last 3 or so were exercises in how the hubristic self-indulgence of an author can kill a series and turn it into a steaming pile of shit.

 

[WWmelb]

I dig this. I'm not much fussed with race, i just with the melanin levels of someones skin would stop being relevant at all. But I love both Elba and Mcconoghy (fucked if i can spell that name) but they are both fantastic actors. So.. yeah i'm cool. I'm reaaally waiting on the casting of Eddie and Jake and Susannah now.

 

[SirSullymore]

Neat, wonder if Elba can/will do a Southern accent.

I'm very curious how they will handle Suzannah now, though.

Did the Gunslinger have a southern accent? It's been yeeeeaars since I read those books, but I don't recall him having a southern accent. I don't recall him being described as having an accent at all, or at least not one from Earth.

Yeah, there's no indication of him having an American southern accent outside of his stereotypical cowboy look. I've just always read him that way do to his look and the western vibes of a lot of the story.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I want to point out that this isn't the first time a white Stephen King character has been played by a black actor. That would be the character of "Red" in "The Shawshank Redemption", who actually was Irish in the original novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", rather than it being a joking response to where his nickname came from, but was played by Morgan Freeman in the movie.

Not to mention Mr Freeman also played Colonel Kurtz in Dreamcatcher, who was borderline albinoid in the book. While he's a damn fine actor I found the choice a bit jarring to begin with, much like I am with Idris Elba as Roland. He's well and truly got the acting chops to play him, but all of the novels and graphic material pretty much spell out that Roland has black hair, pale blue eyes and is white.

Also, as people have pointed out, this potentially affects other characters like Detta/Odetta Walker. Given that all of his ka-tet are drawn from different time periods they could make her the white daughter of a plantation owner in pre-Civil War America and keep the race issue. However in the book she is later involved in an interracial relationship with the white Eddie Dean. Do they then change him black, or just leave him as he is?

Still, I'm going to keep an open mind on this and see how it pans out. Perhaps Mr Elba's acting skills will be enough to make me forget how I've imagined Roland while reading the novels and graphic novels and just enjoy the ride.

The last 3 or so were exercises in how the hubristic self-indulgence of an author can kill a series and turn it into a steaming pile of shit.

I'm inclined to agree with you there buddy. Although I though the first three were brilliant.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

Would it be controversial to suggest they just flip it all up and cast Charlize Theron/ Michael B Jordan as Susanah and Eddy?