Want to see a doorway into Mid-World? Dark Tower filming in NY right now!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. The Dark Tower film is still rolling along and they've moved from their base in S. Africa to get exteriors in New York City, with the main cast including Idris Elba's Roland Deschain, Matthew McConaughey's Man in Black and Tom Taylor's Jake Chambers.

The way most movies work is they move locations and shoot everything they need at that location before moving on, so we're getting little bits and pieces from all over this first movie day by day as the crew grabs what they need on the streets of New York. We've seen images of Roland and Jake in New York (which will be later in the movie) and now we're seeing one of the most interesting locations, which I've embedded below via quick Instagram snappers (with a hat tip to my Dark Tower junky brother in arms Scott Wampler over at BMD)

This is certainly the Dutch Hill Mansion, which is essentially a living, breathing character in and of itself. This house contains a doorway that connects Roland's Mid-World to our world. There are more than a few doorways in Stephen King's epic series and none of them are unguarded. Jake Chambers feels drawn to Roland's world and has to get past this particularly nasty door guard in order to reach it.

The outside is very much a classic rundown haunted house kind of place and that's what we have for you below:

By now you shouldn't be surprised this bad boy makes an appearance in the first movie even though it doesn't appear until the third book. I wrote a lot about the Akiva Goldsman/Jeff Pinkner draft that is essentially the foundation for the shooting draft of this film. Read that article here if you missed it. The short-short version is that they're folding in elements from all over the series and using the Horn of Eld as their get out of jail free card for all creative license choices they make (a smart move and one I've been advocating for since the JJ Abrams days).

In this turn of the wheel Jake's first entry into Mid-World is taken from his second entry as told in The Waste Lands. In book one he's just this curious kid who doesn't really know where he is and we don't find out how he got pulled into Mid-World until Book 2. I know, it's confusing, which is probably why they're simplifying it for the movie and using the most cinematic entry into Roland's world first.

Here's a little taste at what's to come, courtesy of Waste Lands illustrator Ned Dameron:

We have little over half a year before Dark Tower hits cinema screens. I'm dying to see how it all shakes out. Fingers crossed for a miracle because if this first one doesn't work and doesn't connect then we lose our chance at a screen version of The Dark Tower for a generation and I want to see the ka-tet formed and working together, damn it! Bring on Blaine! Bring on Shardik! I must see those things realized!

PS - Here's a nifty picture of producer Ron Howard with Idris Elba in full on Roland gear and director Nikolaj Arcel. Enjoy it!

-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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