The Dark Tower Movie Has Been Postponed

The upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen King's classic fantasy series The Dark Tower has been delayed. The film was originally scheduled to be released in February next year, but will now debut later in the year.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, the film will no longer hit cinemas on its original date of February 17. Instead it will open on an as-yet-unspecified date in the summer.

EW states that although filming on The Dark Tower was completed in July, the ambitious post-production process means that it can no longer hit that initial date. The movie has a relatively modest production budget of $60 million, and a February release would have meant adding millions to the cost. Instead, Sony has opted to delay the release in order to give the filmmakers time to complete the film on budget.

The Dark Tower stars Idris Elba as gunslinger Roland Deschain, while Matthew McConaughey is playing demonic sorcerer Walter Padick, aka The Man in Black. The movie is directed by Nikolaj Arcel, who previously helmed the Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair. The first official images were release in July.

In September it was also revealed that Sony are planning a Dark Tower TV show. It will be an adaptation of 1997's Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in King's epic series, and will feature both Elba and his 15-year-old co-star Tom Taylor. The pair will form part of a framing device for the central story, which is set many years before the events of the film.

The Dark Tower encompasses eight novels, which King published between 1982 and 2012. The books blend classic western themes with horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.