It feels like The Dark Tower has taken an infinity to make its way from the depths of development hell into an actual living, breathing production. Yet here we are, with Nikolaj Arcel's first film in a planned trilogy set for a February 17, 2017 release date, and concrete photos of Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba working their magic on the film's set. Now, the film has been announced as revealing its first look at actual footage in the coming months. Unfortunately, it's at an exclusive event on the West Coast, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
The magazine is hosting their EW PopFest between October 29th and 30th, and one of the events that's being used to lure prospective ticket buyers is the fact that the first ever footage of The Dark Tower is going to be put in front of the eyes of all of the festival's spectators. No specific date has been announced, but it's to be assumed that much like any other festival or convention, there will be some discussion, a little fanfare, then a presentation of Roland and The Man in Black's first adventure on the big screen.
With more studios finding more exclusive and restrictive ways to showcase footage of their huge projects outside of a packed to the gills event like Comic Con, EW PopFest could be a new venue for filmmakers and studios to start drumming up buzz for their latest projects. Certainly Sony will need to get the ball rolling hardcore on this film, considering their adaptation of Stephen King's prolific fantasy series could be a surefire moneymaker, in a time when the studio absolutely needs one. Though it sucks that this first footage is being unveiled in a premium event space, this announcement does start to set a timeline for the first look that the general public will get.
Sony has only three big ticket films left in this calendar year: The Magnificent Seven, Inferno, and Passengers. Now, the best case scenario would more than likely see Inferno attaching a trailer for The Dark Tower to its prints for the October 28th release, with the EW PopFest crowd seeing an extended clip of some sort during that weekend's festival. Of course, this is probably not what's going to happen, as Passengers is set for a December 21st release date, and that seems more like an opportune time to deploy a trailer, what with Sony hoping that the Jennifer Lawrence / Chris Pratt film will draw some attention from audiences and awards voters alike.
Still, December seems a bit late for a February film to be releasing a trailer, especially a film as anticipated as The Dark Tower. So it wouldn't be that bad of an idea for Sony to release a teaser with The Magnificent Seven in September, deploy some sweet footage during the festival event in October, and then show a longer, better trailer with Passengers in December. For now though, we know that The Dark Tower will show footage during EW's PopFest on either October 29th or 30th, with the film being released on February 17th, 2017. Though as soon as we have any new info on a trailer release of any sort, we'll have it here for you to enjoy!
