I’ve been a fan of The Dark Tower for a better part of my life. Stephen King’s amalgam of worlds, stories, and terrors has served as a basis for my love of storytelling for quite some time. On the eve of its first trailer, I got a chance to talk with King himself, and discuss the movie, his process, and just how far his universe extends.

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Asking King what he thought of the trailer, his reaction was simple. “I thought it was fantastic.” He elaborated, “Fans of the books are going to be delighted to finally see Roland and Jake on screen, not to mention Walter, the Man in Black.” Expanding on that, I asked him what he thought of seeing two of our most talented actors portraying these characters that he created so long ago. “It was great to see Idris Elba as Roland. He has terrific focus and tremendous energy as Roland. Mathew McConaughey is very scary and very intense as Walter. I love that right away you set up the tension between the two of them.”The first trailer, which you can watch above, serves as both a jumping in point for folks who might not be well-versed in what this story is, as well as fan-service to people like me who have been reading King’s multiverse for the better part of their lives. “The trailer expresses a throwback to fantasy elements and the western iconography of the good guy, the bad guy, and the stakes being set high,” King told me. “People go in expecting to see a hell of a showdown, and that’s what they get.”Focusing on fans of the series, I asked King what long-time readers of The Dark Tower will be looking forward to in the film. “I think they’re going to trip to the idea of doors between worlds. There’s little things here that really make your eyes open. In the film, Jake goes through a hole between worlds – in the movie, it’s a hole between two worlds – the house on Dutch Hill is where it happens. In the movie itself, he throws through a sneaker, and it goes from New York city and lands in a desert.” King elaborated, “That’s’ what I love about fantasy – the way the real world is right next to this world of make believe where there are monsters and Thinnys and all kinds of crazy stuff going on. I absolutely love that.”King has been teasing where The Dark Tower film sits in terms of canonical storytelling. A few months ago, he revealed the film's first poster , with the message: "Pilgrim, there are other worlds than these. Come with us on the adventure." I asked him whether he views the film as an extension of his books, to which he replied, “What I’ve always enjoyed is seeing my stories serving as a launching pad of some new or adapted vision of what I’ve done. The people involved in the movie all had the latitude, which I was happy to give them, to reinvent it.” A bit murky, but from the answer, as well as his teases, it’s safe to say the film moves the goal-posts of his story.The Dark Tower was my personal first foray into the idea of a shared universe. It's silly to think of now considering stuff like the MCU, but storytelling like that just wasn't as common decades ago. Asking King about his impact on that sort of world-building, he said, "I like to think that I had something to do with that, but I built on the work of science fiction writers from the ‘40s and ‘50s. I tried to freshen it up and break a new idea. What I really wanted to do was marry the idea of high fantasy like Lord of the Rings with the whole classic western thing. It’s really sort of a stew, which is one of the reasons why I love this movie for taking ideas from the book and joining them in a different way, while keeping the cores of the books."Obviously, The Dark Tower isn't the only adaptation of King's works that's in production. On the recent trailer for 2017's It, King remarked, "I thought that the trailer was terrific, and I’ve seen the movie, and I think it’s also terrific. I think people are going to be very pleased with both that and The Dark Tower. I’m very fortunate about that." Going down that rabbit hole, I asked him about another one of his projects, Castle Rock, an enigmatic Hulu collaboration with JJ Abrams . "I have some ideas about how it’s going to play out, but I think JJ Abrams would cut my tongue out if I said anything about it."Well that wouldn't be good for business.We'll have much more on The Dark Tower leading up to its August 4th release.

Marty Sliva is a Executive Editor at IGN. A girl he was dating once stepped on his PlayStation 4, and now he no longer owns PT. But don't worry, they broke up. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty