Yesterday, the Internet exploded with the news that 28-year-old Australian actress Abbey Lee, last seen in "Mad Max: Fury Road," had been cast as the female lead Tirana in the adaptation of Stephen King's fan-favorite "The Dark Tower." This news was met first with excitement because, hey, "The Dark Tower" is finally gaining momentum after a decade of false starts. But that excitement quickly gave way to puzzlement as Tirana is not a major character in the novels by any measure. She doesn't show up until the seventh book and her role is not a big one.
This seems to suggest that Sony Pictures and director Nikolaj Arcel are going to make changes to the narrative in order to make it translatable for the screen. That's understandable as anyone who has read the books knows it is impossible to 100 percent faithfully adapt King's sprawling series. However, rearranging the main characters seems to be a step too far.
"The Dark Tower" is already set up with a core group of characters who have enough backstory and development to fill multiple trilogies. Why risk the ire of a passionate and impatient fan base by, rewriting that aspect to such an extreme degree?
Lee, who can next be seen in "Gods of Egypt," joins a cast that already includes Idris Elba, who will be playing gunslinging protagonist Roland Deschain, and Matthew McConaughey, who will be playing the mysterious Man in Black. Tirana is being described as "having fake human skin, snakelike eyes, and is as sexy as she is dangerous." Does that sound familiar to any book readers out there? My best guess is that she is a Taheen, a human/animal like creature from the novels.
Sony, following the implosion of their Spider-Man property, is desperately trying to get back into the blockbuster franchise game and "The Dark Tower" is the kind of high risk-high reward gamble they should be taking. But will the studio's massive story changes derail the series before it even gets started?
"The Dark Tower" is expected to hit theaters on January 13, 2017. Sony will have to get the project in gear soon if they hope to hit that release date.
