Deciding between two franchise is the hardest decision a Matthew McConaughey will ever make.
McConaughey’s next big role is in the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower in which he’ll play the antagonist, the Man in Black, opposite Idris Elba.
And while Dark Tower is a fantasy, it’s also grounded in reality, which is just one of the reasons he chose the role over an undisclosed one in James Gunn’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
“I like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, but what I saw was ‘It’s successful, and now we’ve got room to make a colorful part for another big-name actor,’ ” he tells Playboy. “I’d feel like an amendment. ‘The Dark Tower’ script was well written, I like the director and his take on it, and I can be the creator, the author of the Man in Black — a.k.a. the Devil — in my version of this Stephen King novel.”
He continues: “We’ve done the first one. It’s a fantastic thriller that takes place in another realm, an alternate universe, but it’s very much grounded. For instance, the gunslinger’s weapon isn’t a lightsaber or something; it’s a pistol. I enjoyed approaching my character as if I were the Devil having a good time, getting turned on by exposing human hypocrisies wherever he finds them.”
So, while McConaughey is playing the Devil in Dark Tower, he loves that it’s both realistic and that he had the opportunity to bring his epic acting chops to the character. Instead of jumping into a role that’s prescribed, he can now be inventive and bring the Man in Black in the way that he wanted, allegedly.
In theaters July 28, 2017, Elba stars as Gunslinger Roland Deschain, who roams an Old West-like landscape in search of the dark tower, in the hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world. The film is not a direct adaptation of any of the books in the series from author Stephen King but is rather a continuation and semi-amalgamation of what’s already out there. It’s hinted that the film takes place towards the end of Deschain’s journey. Fran Kranz, Jackie Earle Haley, Abbey Lee, and Kathryn Winnick also star.
The Dark Tower was directed by Nikolaj Arcel and produced by Akiva Goldman, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Erica Hughes.
