Idris Elba

With movies seemingly getting longer by the second after Michael Bay and his ilk ushered in a new and exhausting runtime era, lights in the bloated darkness can come from the most unexpected of places. The Dark Tower, for example, is only 95 minutes long — for those of you who, like me, don’t understand what that means unless it’s in hours, that equates to an hour and 35 minutes. Which is less than two hours!

The world approaches a great cataclysm in the latest trailer for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s fantasy novel The Dark Tower, but the specific nature of that cosmic upheaval, I know not what. Not having read the source novel, I’ve decided to go into the film cold when it premieres on August 4, and so far, I’ve done a pretty solid job of keeping myself unsullied by plot revelations. The new international trailer does me a favor, too, by playing all of its details of plot close to the vest. There’s a whole lot of ominous talking, stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey appear to have some manner of beef that could decide the fate of the known universe, but beyond that, I’m in the dark (tower).

You know those early 2000s romantic comedies that always had the two leads standing back-to-back with “WELP” expressions on their faces on the DVD covers? Imagine that, but with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey and you’ve got the newest international poster for The Dark Tower.

Ah, the magic of British TV. No matter how busy Idris Elba’s movie schedule might get, there’s always time for more Luther. The fan-favorite DCI will officially return for a fifth season, filming in 2018.

In case you forgot that The Dark Tower is actually opening this summer, Sony finally decided to participate in the movie marketing machine. After seeing close to nothing promoting the film, first trailer finally dropped last month, a mere three months out from its release in August. And over the weekend, some more new footage debuted in three TV spots.

At a hectic airport, two strangers get bumped from their flights to extremely time-sensitive engagements: he’s an expert surgeon who’s got to get to a Baltimore hospital in time for a delicate procedure, she’s an accomplished photojournalist on her way to her own destination wedding. They catch an off-the-books flight with a small, independent operator, but ultimately get what they pay for when that craft malfunctions and crash-lands on a snowy mountain, leaving the pair injured and helpless. If they intend on returning to civilization with their lives, it’ll take all of their resourcefulness and convenient medical know-how to survive.

By this point in a big film’s marketing cycle, we typically would have seen a couple trailers, a ton of posters, lengthy magazine pieces, the works. In contrast, there has been so little concrete info out there on The Dark Tower, which opens in theaters in almost exactly three months, that some people (like, y’know, me) began to doubt whether the movie would open on time, or even if it existed at all.

If you read our summer movie preview yesterday you might have seen The Dark Tower on our list and thought, ‘Wait, what?! That’s coming out in August?’ Yes, your eyeballs will finally see the long awaited Stephen King adaptation in just three months, but the average moviegoer wouldn’t know it from the complete lack of marketing. We haven’t even seen a trailer yet, and last month the release was pushed back a week. But now, finally, we have officially confirmation of the trailer’s arrival.

While decades of film journalism has taught us to treat Hollywood insiders as the sole source of movie rumors, there are plenty of places to go for production updates if you know where to look. Movie studios are businesses, after all, and business have to do things like file for copyrights, pull permits, and, sometimes, submit films and trailers to government agencies for review. That’s how we are able to bring you today’s update on the long-anticipated trailer for Columbia Pictures’ The Dark Tower adaptation. It didn’t come from some studio executive sending text messages on the sly; it came from the Consumer Protection agency of British Columbia.

If hours and hours of Twin Peaks or The Affair weren’t enough for you, Showtime has some major additional treats coming up. Not only do we have premiere dates for the Jim Carrey-produced standup comedy I’m Dying Up Here and John Ridley’s Idris Elba-starring miniseries Guerrilla, we’ve even got the first trailers.