It seems we have an official release date for the first film (January 13, 2017). It's also confirmed that among the crew will be Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, Fringe) as writer/producer and Nikolaj Arcel (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair) as directing.
According to Stephen King himself, the casting isn't 100% finalised yet, but he's stated that the rumours of Idris Elba as Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black are very likely to happen. There's been some backlash against the former but I personally think it's a brilliant piece of casting (and so does Stephen King, apparently, so people who are claiming this violates the author's intent are completely full of shit). There are few actors with the charisma and acting chops to pull off the role who would be believable as a gunslinging badass, but Elba is definitely one of them (and if you disagree with that you obviously haven't watched The Wire). Furthermore, the issue of his appearance is likely to be completely irrelevant to the story, since Gilead is not noted anywhere in the books as having a problem with racism. (Indeed, if memory serves, Roland is actually confused when he hears about the civil rights struggles in the U.S., because it's completely unthinkable to him that such a thing could actually be an issue). So really, who cares if he doesn't look like Clint Eastwood? It won't affect the story. As for McConaughey, I'm pretty sure anyone who's watched the first season of True Detective knows he'll be able to pull it off.
Anyway, looking forward to this. Here's hoping they don't screw it up. The casting, at least, is quite reassuring. Feel free to discuss choices for the other roles, or whatever else you feel like discussing. Aaron Paul has been rumoured for Eddie Dean and I find it difficult to imagine improving on that (even though it'll probably get him permanently typecast as a junkie), while I see any of Kerry Washington, Lupita Nyong'o, or Zoe Saldana being credible choices for Susannah. No opinion about who should play Jake; I'm not familiar enough with child actors these days.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.”
-Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
Vaulting, veering, vomiting up the values that victimized me, feeling vast,
feeling virginal... was this how he felt? This verve, this vitality... this vision...
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2016/02/11, 03:21:31
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