Fans who are eagerly awaiting the movie adaptation of Stephen King's "Dark Tower," should be ready for some changes to the plot. You'll recall that back in May, while he was a guest on the Sirius/XM show "Behind The Scenes With Anthony Breznican," King addressed some of the furor that was brewing about potential deviations from the book:

"It starts sort of in medias res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning, which may upset some of the fans a little bit. But they will get behind it because it is the story."

Now, producer Ron Howard has weighed in on the story as well. During an interview with "Deadline," Howard commented that:

"Akiva Goldsman first pitched it to me while we were making A Beautiful Mind and the rights weren’t available. JJ Abrams was working on it at first and then Akiva told me JJ was involved in so many projects he let it go. We started talking about what it could be. I read all the novels and we broke them down. He presented this idea to Stephen King, and this is insider material you might not get, but it was about introducing the Horn of Eld into the very first story. He knew it would allow us to use elements of the novels in a new combination that would give us the latitude to be true to the essence of the novels, but also re-balance and refocus the narrative in a cinematic way."

Howard went on to explain that their efforts were to adapt the story to make it more cinema-friendly and that King was on board with the idea:

"We simplified the storyline, made it less expensive as a result, but we still utilized a lot of those important structural adjustments that Akiva and I had devised going back years ago. One of the things we did was put together a team of Dark Tower researchers, devotees of the books. We wanted to restructure the novels to be most cinematic and Stephen King agreed completely and understood the journey we were on immediately and supported it. We used this group to inspire our thinking and stay in the universe of Dark Tower."

"Dark Tower" is being directed by Nikolaj Arcel and schedule to release on February 17, 2017. It will star Idris Elba as the main character "Roland Deschain," and Matthew McConaughey as "Walter Padick." The film will also feature Tom Taylor, Katheryn Winnick, and Jackie Earle Haley.

Via Blastr