The Dark Tower is filming! Can we take a beat to appreciate that? It seems like ages since the idea of making an adaptation sparked up, and it has in fact been years with several different treatments rising before inevitably falling. But this latest one is sticking, and you can now see a first look of Idris Elba as Stephen King’s famous gunslinger in photos shot by paparazzi from the set.

The story brings to life King’s sci-fi/fantasy/spaghetti Western story in telling of Roland Deschain and his cat-and-mouse game with the Man in Black. Roland (Elba) is a gunslinger from the fantastical realm of Mid-World, where he has an odyssey of sorts heading to the mysterious tower at the center, which is also eyed by an elusive magician known as The Man in Black, played in the film by Matthew McConaughey.

Elba was spotted on set sporting some incredible cowboy and more sartorial savvy attire in front of a green-screened backdrop. See the images below:

First look of Idris Elba on the set of Stephen King’s THE DARK TOWER pic.twitter.com/ddmogH3Zgy — Lights Camera Action (@lights_cam_act) May 16, 2016

During an interview with EW announcing the casting of the two leads, director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) said of Elba:

For me, it just clicked. He’s such a formidable man…I had to go to Idris and tell him my vision for the entire journey with Roland and the ka-tet. We discussed, who is this character? What’s he about? What’s his quest? What’s his psychology? We tried to figure out if we saw the same guy. And we absolutely had all the same ideas and thoughts. He had a unique vision for who Roland would be.

Rounding out the cast are Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) as female lead Tirana, Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen) as the vampire leader Sayre, Fran Kranz as the Man in Black’s righthand man, and Katheryn Winnick (Vikings).

The Dark Tower is scheduled to hit theaters on February 17, 2017.