The Dark Tower (2017 film)
The Dark Tower is a 2017 American neo-Western science fantasy film[4] directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel. Based on Stephen King's novel series of the same name, the film stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, a gunslinger on a quest to protect the Dark Tower—a mythical structure which supports all realities—while Matthew McConaughey plays his nemesis Walter Padick (The Man in Black), and Tom Taylor stars as Jake Chambers, a boy who becomes Roland's apprentice.[5]
The Dark Tower
- Akiva Goldsman
- Jeff Pinkner
- Anders Thomas Jensen
- Nikolaj Arcel
- Akiva Goldsman
- Ron Howard
- Erica Huggins
- Columbia Pictures
- MRC
- Imagine Entertainment
- Weed Road Pictures
- July 31, 2017 (Museum of Modern Art)
- August 4, 2017 (United States)
95 minutes[1]
United States
English
$66 million[2]
$113.2 million[3]
Intended as the first installment in a multimedia franchise, the film combines various elements from the eight-novel series, mostly from the first and third volumes, and takes place in both modern-day New York City and in Mid-World, Roland's Old West-style parallel universe. The film also serves as a sequel to the novels.[6][7]
The production of the film was complex and difficult, as production began ten years before the release of the film.[8] Efforts to adapt The Dark Tower series for the screen started in 2007, with periodic reports and official announcements. The project was then shelved before the rights were transitioned to a different production company. Development experienced starts and stops with various filmmakers and studios at different times, including Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Lionsgate Entertainment. The adaptation went through three major phases of planning: with J. J. Abrams from 2007 to 2009, Ron Howard from 2010 to 2015, and finally, the current iteration, announced in March 2015, produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment and Media Rights Capital,[9] with Arcel directing and Howard remaining in a producing role.
The Dark Tower premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on July 31, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing on August 4, 2017.[10] The film grossed $113.2 million worldwide on a $66 million budget and received generally negative reviews, with criticism aimed at its compression of the multiple-novel source material into a single film, though Elba's performance, Holkenborg’s musical score, and the action sequences earned praise.[11][12][13][14][15]
Plot[edit]
Eleven-year-old Jake Chambers experiences visions involving a mysterious warlock, the Man in Black, who seeks to destroy a Tower and bring ruin to the Universe while a Gunslinger opposes him. Jake's visions are dismissed by his mother, stepfather, and psychiatrists as nightmares resulting from the trauma of his father's death the previous year.
At his apartment home in New York City, a group of workers from an alleged psychiatric facility offer to rehabilitate Jake. Recognizing them from his visions as monsters wearing human skin, Jake flees from them, and they give chase. Jake finds an abandoned house from one of his visions where he discovers a high-tech portal that leads to a post-apocalyptic landscape called Mid-World.
In Mid-World, Jake encounters the Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, who has emerged in his visions. Roland is pursuing Walter Padick who has also appeared in Jake's dreams, seeking to kill him as revenge for the murder of his father, Steven, and other fallen Gunslingers. He explains to Jake that for decades, Walter has been abducting children with psychic powers, attempting to use their "shine"[16] to bring down the Dark Tower, a fabled structure located at the center of the Universe. This will allow monstrous beings from the darkness outside to invade and destroy reality.
Roland takes Jake to a local village in order to have his visions interpreted by a seer. Having learned of Jake's escape, Walter investigates and discovers from his minion Sayre that Jake has "pure Shine", enough psychic potential to destroy the Dark Tower single-handedly. Walter kills Jake's stepfather; then he interrogates his mother about her son's visions.
Back in Mid-World, the seer determines that the machine is six months away on foot and portal access is restricted to Walter's bases. Jake realizes that Walter has a base in New York that they can use to reach the machine. Suddenly, the Taheen, Walter's minions, attack the village – but Roland kills many of them. Roland and Jake return to Earth where Roland's injuries are treated at a hospital. Jake learns the location of Walter's base from a homeless man who helped him earlier. When Jake returns home to check in on his mother, he finds her charred remains and breaks down in tears. Seeing this, Roland vows to avenge her death. This leads to him teaching Jake the basics of gun fighting, as well as the Gunslinger's Creed, which he has not uttered since his own father's death.
As Roland replenishes his supply of ammo at a gun store, he is attacked by Walter, who captures Jake and takes him through a portal at his base to a machine that will destroy the Dark Tower with Jake's powers. Jake uses these psychic powers to alert Roland to the portal code that he needs and Roland battles his way through Walter's henchmen, reopening the portal, which Jake forces to stay open. Walter is forced to return to New York to fight Roland and wounds him. When Jake reminds him of the Gunslinger's Creed, Roland recovers and kills Walter with a trick shot after a brief fight. Finally, he destroys the machine and saves the Dark Tower, Jake, and the other children.
Roland prepares to return to his own world and offers Jake a place by his side as his companion. Jake accepts the offer and the two head back to Mid-World together.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Dark Tower grossed $50.7 million in the United States and Canada and $62.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $113.2 million.[3]
In North America, The Dark Tower was released alongside the opening of Kidnap, as well as the wide expansion of Detroit, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 3,451 theaters in its opening weekend.[71] It made $1.8 million from Thursday previews at 2,770 theaters, with screenings beginning at 7:19 p.m. as an ode to the 19:19 of Stephen King lore present in the book series, and $7.7 million on its first day.[72] The film went on to debut to $19.5 million, dethroning two-time defender Dunkirk as the top film at the box office, although it was the second lowest gross for a film to finish number one in all of 2017.[73] In its second weekend the film dropped 58.9% to $7.9 million, finishing 4th at the box office.[74]
Critical response[edit]
Critics panned The Dark Tower, calling it "boring and flavorless" and "incomprehensible to newbies and wildly unfaithful and simplistic to fans of King's books."[75][76] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 15% based on 279 reviews with an average rating of 4.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Go then, there are other Stephen King adaptations than these."[77] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[78] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported that filmgoers gave a 69% overall positive score and a 43% "definite recommend".[72]
TheWrap's Dan Callahan was critical of the film's sloppiness and poor editing by saying, "The 95-minute culmination of years-long efforts to bring The Dark Tower to the big screen is a complete disaster, a limp, barely coherent shell of a movie."[79] Mike Ryan of Uproxx also criticized the incoherent plot, writing:
Franchise[edit]
Sequel[edit]
Prior to the film being panned by critics, there was talk of a possible sequel. In an August 2017 interview with Collider, before the film was released into theatres, King expressed hope for a sequel film in addition to the television series by suggesting that it should be R-rated, have Roland wearing a hat and include the "lobstrosities" from The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three.[89] In a 2017 interview with ComingSoon.net, three days after its general release, Arcel confirmed that, if a sequel were made, The Drawing of the Three would form the basis of the sequel, and that Eddie and Susannah would appear alongside Elba, McConaughey, Taylor and Haley reprising their roles as Roland, Walter, Jake and Sayre respectively.[90]
By 2019, producer Ron Howard was silent on any discussion of a sequel when he admitted that the film had failed to capture the basis of the Dark Tower source material, because they had tried to reduce it to PG-13 rather than the dark R-rated horror story it should have been.[91] At that time, there were still discussions in play regarding a possible television series, on Amazon, as a way to move forward with adaptations of the Dark Tower novels.
Television series[edit]
In September 2016, The Dark Tower television series was scheduled to be released in 2018, with Glen Mazzara as showrunner.[92] Elba and Taylor were set to reprise their roles as Roland and Jake respectively. The series was intended to provide the backstory of the film, being based on King's The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass, The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole and elements of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, with another actor playing young Roland, and Haysbert attached to return as Steven Deschain. Mazzara said that the series would explore "how Walter became the Man in Black, and how their rivalry cost Roland everything and everyone he ever loved", though McConaughey did not initially sign on for the series.[93][94]
While discussing the development of the series in the aftermath of the negative critical response to the film, King expressed "we'll see what happens with that. It would be like a complete reboot, so we'll just have to see".[86]
In February 2018, Amazon bought the rights to the series adaptation, though it was not made clear at first if Elba, Taylor or McConaughey would be involved.[95] It was later confirmed that the series would serve as a reboot with Sam Strike and Jasper Pääkkönen being cast as Roland Deschain and The Man in Black respectively.[96] In January 2020, it was confirmed Amazon decided not to move forward with the pilot, but that production company MRC was shopping the pilot scripts elsewhere.[97]
