It’s been one long winding road, but the adaptation for Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower is finally here. Last year, both Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey were in talks to appear in the film.

Now after some negotiation, it appears that the two are confirmed for these roles. More on the story below.

It’s being reported that Idris Elba, the star of Luther, Pacific Rim, Marvel’s Thor movies, Cary Fukunaga’s Netflix original Beasts of No Nation, the upcoming Star Trek Beyond, Finding Dory, and The Jungle Book, and much more, is now in early talks to lead the cast of The Dark Tower, the movie adaptation of the Stephen King horror fantasy book series of the same name, as the Gunslinger himself, Roland Deschain.

If Elba is officially signed on, the showdown between the Gunslinger and the Man in Black could be Elba versus Matthew McConaughey, who was reported to be in early talks for the role of the villain last month.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard about an actor being up for a role in The Dark Tower, the long in development adaptation of author Stephen King‘s popular book series. Previous names attached to the adaptation have included Russell Crowe and Javier Bardem.

Both of those actors previously won an Academy Award, Crowe for 2000’s Gladiator and Bardem for 2007’s No Country for Old Men. Now comes word of a new actor who might star in the adaptation, and he’s also got an Oscar. It’s being reported that Matthew McConaughey, who recently won the Best Actor award for his work in Dallas Buyers Club, has entered into early talks for a role in The Dark Tower. But unlike Crowe and Bardem, who were up for the lead role of Roland Deschain, McConaughey is looking to play the film’s villain, a certain man in black.

A movie adaptation of Stephen King‘s popular book series The Dark Tower has been set up and developed at multiple movie studios over the years before being eventually dropped and moving on to the next studio willing to give it a shot.

The latest studio to take on the ambitious adaptation is Sony, who seems to have a lot of faith that it could be one of their next big franchises after we found out back in April that the first movie was being fast tracked by the studio.

Now comes word that Sony has found the spot they want to release the first movie on, setting a release date of January 13, 2017.

After a long gestating series, Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower is on its way to becoming a film. After Universal and WB passed on the project, Sony Pictures picked it up, and now they have signed a director to helm the film, getting The Dark Tower that much closer to production.

A new report says that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo writer and A Royal Affair director and writer Nikolaj Arcel has been hired to write and direct the adaptation of the series of novels that center on gunslinger Roland Deschain. More on the story below.