After plenty of heavy rumour and unconfirmed reports, now comes some official word that Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are both on board for the big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

The confirmation comes courtesy of an interview from King and director Nikolaj Arcel with EW, in which they confirmed that, yes, Elba will be playing Roland Deschain/The Gunslinger and McConaughey will be playing Randall Flagg/The Man in Black. Shooting will start in South Africa in just seven weeks’ time.

Speaking to the outlet, King confirmed that the story will actually start midway through the source material, saying, “The movie starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning, which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it because it is the story.”

Arcel added, “A lot of it takes place in our day, in the modern world,” which would suggest to some that the film could actually be adapting part of The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands in which The Gunslinger and his group look to bring a young boy from New York City into their world.

On casting Idris Elba as The Gunslinger, Arcel said, “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.”

On bringing in McConaughey to play The Man in Black, the director explained, “Matthew is an incredible actor who can do anything. That’s how I feel about Walter Padick . He could do anything. He is the timeless sorcerer, and being a Stephen King fan, I’ve read and experienced Walter in various iterations. He has a very interesting way of seeing the world. He sees it with a sort of delight, even though he is obviously on the wrong side of the light-and-dark spectrum. He’s someone I’ve been having a lot of fun with.”

The basic premise of King’s The Dark Tower, which encompasses eight novels and even ties-in with other books, follows The Gunslinger on his quest towards a mysterious tower in a world gone to hell. As well as a big screen movie, there’s also a tie-in TV series in development as well.

At present, The Dark Tower is set to hit cinemas on January 13th, 2017.