Watch Matthew McConaughey And Idris Elba In The Epic First Trailer For Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’

“I kill with my heart.”

Stephen King let fans know late Tuesday that the first trailer for the Idris Elba-Matthew McConaughey blockbuster based on his novel The Dark Tower was on the way. Elba and McConaughey also teased it on their Twitter feeds. 

Sony dropped the nearly 3-minute preview overnight and it does not disappoint. In fact, to the hardcore King fan—like me, for instance—there are moments in the trailer that feel so perfectly tuned in to the spirit of author’s work that there were definitely some goosebumps by the final moments of the clip. 

The story, for the uninitiated, is about Elba’s Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger. He is traveling Mid-World, which in the novels (and apparently the film) seems to be a version of our world long after some kind of apocalyptic event. 

Roland is hunting the Dark Tower, which acts as a hub binding all time and space. McConaughey is The Man in Black (a.k.a. Randall Flagg in King’s The Stand). He may be a sorcerer and an agent of the Great Old Ones—who could destroy the Tower.  

There’s always an implied caveat with trailers: They are an art in themselves and can often promise a much better movie than the one viewers actually see in theaters. Here, with Elba in full-on badass mode and McConaughey playing the villain (he may have been the perfect choice for this role) it’s hard to see how it could go wrong.

The Dark Tower also stars Tom Taylor, Abbey Lee, Fran Kranz, and Jackie Earle Haley. It premieres in theaters nationwide on August 4, 2017.