Idris Elba will have maybe his busiest year, with 4 high-profile films scheduled to be released in 2017, in which he either stars or plays a supporting role: “Thor: Ragnarok” (Disney/Marvel), “Molly’s Game” (Entertainment One), the romantic drama “The Mountain Between Us” (Twentieth Century Fox), and finally “The Dark Tower” (Sony) – an adaptation of Stephen King’s fantasy series which stars Elba and Matthew McConaughey set for an August 4, 2017 release.

King’s mammoth series has been adapted for the big screen in a planned feature film trilogy, as well as a TV series to come later.

Elba stars as the gunslinger Roland Deschain, and Matthew McConaughey is the villainous Man in Black in the film.

The “Dark Tower” franchise of novels which King himself considers his magnum opus, is a cross-genre work, including elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror and western, with at least 8 novels in the series, published between 1982 and 2012.

Here’s a general plot summary: In the story, Roland Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of “Arthur Eld”, his world’s analogue of King Arthur. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. Many of the magical aspects have vanished from Mid-World, but traces remain as do relics from a technologically advanced society. Roland’s quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland’s world is said to have “moved on”, and it appears to be coming apart at the seams. Mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Even the sun sometimes rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland’s motives, goals and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries. Along his journey to the Dark Tower, Roland meets a great number of both friends and enemies. For most of the way he is accompanied by a group of people who together with him form the Ka-tet of the Nineteen and Ninety-nine, consisting of Jake Chambers, Eddie and Susannah Dean, and Oy.

Sony will release the first installment of “The Dark Tower” on August 4.

The studio has released a new featurette titled “The Legacy of the Gunslinger” which gives audiences a behind-the-scenes look at who Idris Elba’s Roland Deschain is. Take a look below, and then check out a trio of explosive promos for the film:

SONY