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In just 25 days, Sony’s long-in-the-making Dark Tower film hits theaters. Yet, you wouldn’t know it, given that we’ve seen and heard so little about the film that it seems like either the Stephen King adaptation is impossible to market, or it’s being kept under so tight a wrap that we’re starting to get a little worried.




Case in point, there’s new trailer for the film out today and outside of a scant few new shots of Roland and the Man in Black, it’s pretty much just a different cut of the very first trailer we saw two months ago—and even that was after months and months of nothing, outside of a leaked early cut of a trailer late last year.

When the film and the cast was announced, it did so with a big splash and an extensive EW feature. But as the the film has approached, we’ve learned very little new. Even beyond the lack of footage—even the TV spots have all been cut-down versions of that first trailer—it feels like we’ve barely heard anything about The Dark Tower outside of the oft-repeated news that it will be a continuation of the books rather than a direct adaptation. Outside of that, give or take a few posters? Nada.


Bear in mind that this movie’s been in the works for ages, is a huge deal—the crown jewel in a year of big-name King adaptations alongside The Mist and It—and, to top it all off, is still ostensibly meant to help launch a companion TV show a year from now. So why is it seemingly so hard for us to actually get anything beyond pretty much the same trailer recut again, a little over 3 weeks before it’s out?

King’s own Dark Tower novels seem like a nightmare to adapt to film—but one that’s mostly sidestepped through the decision to make this essentially a sequel to the events of the books. But so far, Dark Tower isn’t exactly doing a great job of setting up what its deal is for either new audiences or fans of the source material, and that’s not helped by the fact that we still know and have seen so little of it this close to release. There’s still time, but the closer we get to The Dark Tower’s August 4 release date, the more wary we get.