WARNING: Spoilers for The Dark Tower book series below.
Stephen King’s Dark Tower book series spanned seven novels over the course of 22 years, following the journey of Roland Deschain on his journey to the titular location.
It takes The Gunslinger a long time to finally reach the tower and when he does, he’s confronted with a startling realization: He’s done it all before. Roland has made the trip to the tower countless times, but every time his journey is different and every time he returns his journey resets. As the book closes, Roland finds himself back at the start of the pages of the first novel, though this time he has something in his possession that he didn’t have the first time around: the Horn of Eld. Once he realizes he has it in his possession, the voice of Gan tells Roland, “This is your promise that things may be different, Roland – that there may yet be rest. Even salvation.”
Building off of all that, King took to Twitter early Thursday morning and posted a cryptic message and photo:
The Dark Tower is close, now. The Crimson King awaits. Soon Roland will raise the Horn of Eld. And blow. pic.twitter.com/rqGSKM3dWL
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 19, 2016
Could King be implying that the events of the upcoming The Dark Tower movie will in fact continue where the books left off? Showing us a different version of Roland’s cycle playing out? Perhaps the version where things work in his favor?
The film’s director Nikolaj Arcel and King have previously said that the film would be different from the books, and perhaps they were winking at us this whole time: the movie is both an adaptation and a sequel to the series. This all remains to be seen however, and likely won’t be confirmed for some time if it’s true, but sound off with your own thoughts on our theory below!
The Dark Tower movie is currently in production in South Africa and will feature Idris Elba as Roland Deschain (The Gunslinger), Matthew McConaughey as Randall Flagg (The Man in Black), Abbey Lee as the film’s female lead, Tirana, Tom Taylor as young Jake Chambers and Fran Kranz as Pimli, the right hand man of Flagg. It is scheduled for release on February 17, 2017.
