If you’ve been following along at home, you know that an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower has reared its head throughout the years, only to sink back down following a Ron Howard departure or some other setback. But with Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) now attached to direct, and the hero and villain cast—Idris Elba as Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as The Man In Black, otherwise known as Randall Flagg—the movie finally appears to be taking shape.
The latest piece of Dark Tower news has revealed who will likely play the female lead in the movie, while also obfuscating just what that role is: Deadline reports that Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) is in talks to star as Tirana, a character with “fake human skin” and “cold snake-like eyes,” who is also “sexy and dangerous.” Now, Tirana is a minor character who doesn’t appear until the seventh book in the series, so her promotion to “female lead” seems unwarranted (not to mention confusing). But after some querying from readers, Deadline followed up on the news item, indicating that the character was described as a “major” one to its writer.
Unfortunately, that update will probably just raise questions about how Susannah Dean, the actual female lead from the books, will be revised or otherwise merged with the Tirana character for the film, though the first adjustment would just amount to whitewashing, as Susannah is a black woman. There’s also the possibility that Lee is playing a modified version of Susan Delgado, assuming the film goes back to the beginning. For now, we suppose we’re glad that we’ve cleared up who’s probably going to play some version of the female lead in the film.