Everyone else is doing it, so why not Stephen King? This seems to be the underlying idea for the upcoming film ‘The Dark Tower,’ based on a very popular book series written by King – and the idea is to seed the film itself with references to King’s other written works (of which there are many, with several of them also having received the big-screen or small-screen treatment).
The key piece of the puzzle with King works, however, is that the author has been self-seeding references to his other works inside his written works for decades – much, much earlier than many movie production companies even thought about any semblance of a “shared universe” for film series.
Eagle-eyed fans caught lots of references to other King works in the first trailer for the forthcoming ‘The Dark Tower,’ so parent film production company Sony has smartly decided to embrace the hunt: they’ve put out a new teaser video for ‘The Dark Tower,’ narrated by the film’s star Idris Elba, that flat-out explains that King’s worlds are indeed all connected – and that the Dark Tower itself is the center of the universe. Take a look:
As Elba says in the teaser:
“There are other worlds than these. Worlds where a boy shines against the dark. Where everyone floats, down below. Where revenge is drenched in blood and fire and no one dares to laugh. Where lives are locked up with undying hope. Worlds that have moved on, and worlds that have not. They all begin and end here: The Dark Tower.”
King fans will easily spot the not-so-vague references to classic King works ‘The Shining,’ ‘IT,’ ‘Carrie,’ ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ ‘Christine,’ and ‘The Stand.’ Whether these properties will be directly referenced in the film – well, that we’ll just have to wait and see, now won’t we?
‘The Dark Tower’ is out in US cinemas on August 4, 2017.
