Matthew McConaughey’s First Major Villain Role Was In This 7-Year-Old Stephen King Movie Being Remade By Mike Flanagan

Matthew McConaughey’s first major villain role was in The Dark Tower, and it will soon be remade by horror writer and director Mike Flanagan. Most of Matthew McConaughey’s best movies put him in heroic roles: Dallas Buyers Club‘s Ron Woodroof became a hero by the film’s ending, and Interstellar‘s Cooper is the definition of a tragic hero. It’s rare that the actor plays a villain, but he got a chance to play his first major antagonist when he joined the cast of The Dark Tower in 2017.

In The Dark Tower, McConaughey plays Walter Padick, the mortal enemy of Idris Elba’s Roland Deschain. Walter was a sorcerer who was determined to bring down the eponymous Tower, which would destroy the entire universe. He’s the main antagonist of The Dark Tower, and since Mike Flanagan is making a Dark Tower show, Walter will show up again, albeit with a different actor. That’s likely for the best, however, as even though Walter was McConaughey’s first major villain, it was far from his best.

Matthew McConaughey’s Biggest Villain Role To Date Is As The Dark Tower’s Walter Padick

McConaughey Played A Villain In Killer Joe, But The Dark Tower Was Much Bigger

Matthew McConaughey in The Dark Tower

Matthew McConaughey has played a handful of villains in the course of his acting career, but his role as Walter Padick in The Dark Tower is by far the biggest bad guy character he’s ever played. In The Dark Tower, McConaughey’s character was trying to destroy the titular Tower and the entire universe along with it. McConaughey has played a villainous role before The Dark Tower – his first was in 2011’s Killer Joe – but Walter was a much more prominent character. In fact, Walter is such an important figure in Stephen King’s literary universe that McConaughey’s portrayal of him turned out to be controversial among fans.

Why Matthew McConaughey’s Villain In The Dark Tower Movie Is So Divisive

McConaughey’s Performance Was Alright, But Walter Was Supposed To Be The Biggest Stephen King Villain Ever

Idris Elba as The Gunslinger/Roland Deschain firing guns in The Dark Tower Roland and Jake walking together in The Dark Tower Roland and the Man in Black in The Dark Tower movie poster
Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey facing off in The Dark Tower Movie
Abbey Lee and Matthew McConaughey look serious in The Dark Tower

Matthew McConaughey’s portrayal of Walter Padick is rather controversial among Stephen King fans. Many critics believed that McConaughey’s attempt to make Walter seem aloof and uninterested ended up making him seem stony and uninteresting. He sometimes fails to come across as devilishly clever and unnervingly charming, and instead seems like a general mustache-twirling villain bent on destroying the world. Walter was supposed to be a truly mysterious character with unknowable machinations, but McConaughey failed to convey that and instead played him like a regular bad guy.

Walter was supposed to be a truly mysterious character with unknowable machinations, but McConaughey failed to convey that and instead played him like a regular bad guy.

The biggest reason McConaughey was criticized for playing Walter Padick, however, was because the character is so important to King’s work. Walter is Randall Flagg, one of the biggest villains in Stephen King’s entire oeuvre. Flagg appears in several Stephen King novels, and he’s a major part of the horror author’s work. Critics are mixed on how well McConaughey played Flagg, but the main problem was that the script of The Dark Tower just didn’t do justice to the character. All of Flagg’s evil machinations and his chaotic nature were gone in the film in favor of an overly simple plan to destroy the Tower.

How Mike Flanagan’s The Dark Tower Show Can Avoid The 2017 Movie’s Walter Padick Complaints

By Being Longer & More Faithful To King’s Books, Flanagan’s Show Can Nail Randall Flagg

Randall Flagg wearing a hood in The Dark Tower VII The Man in Black, Randall Flagg, and Marten Broadcloak in Stephen King's Dark Tower Alexander Skarsgard as Randall Flagg standing in the middle of a corridor in The Stand
Alexander Skarsgard as Randall Flagg around neon lights in The Stand
Roland and the Man in Black in The Dark Tower movie poster

Both Matthew McConaughey’s portrayal of Randall Flagg and the movie adaptation of The Dark Tower left quite a bit to be desired, but Mike Flanagan has a chance to right those wrongs. Flanagan’s Dark Tower series can easily give the world a better live-action depiction of Randall Flagg for two big reasons: it’s going to be significantly longer than 2017’s The Dark Tower, and it’s going to follow King’s books more closely. Mike Flanagan is already a master of adapting Stephen King’s novels, and The Dark Tower books became popular for a reason, so a more faithful adaptation should be a recipe for success.

The longer, episodic format of Flanagan’s show will give whoever plays Flagg ample time to establish a creepy, almost omniscient persona around the character that McConaughey’s performance didn’t have the time or script for. Instead of rushing straight from introductions to Flagg’s final play at destroying the Tower, Flanagan’s Dark Tower can introduce him more naturally. There will be time for Flagg’s palaver with Roland, for their tarot drawing, and for all the little things that make him such an interesting and unique villain.

It won’t be easy to capture all the things that make Randall Flagg scary and unique, but if anyone can beat Matthew McConaughey and The Dark Tower, it’s Mike Flanagan.

Of course, the actor who plays Walter in Mike Flanagan’s The Dark Tower will also have big shoes to fill. There’s been a lot of speculation about who Mike Flanagan may cast for The Dark Tower, and Randall Flagg may be the most important. They’ll have to learn from the mistakes McConaughey made and deliver a more unsettling, chaotic, friendly in an insidious way, and devilishly charming performance. It won’t be easy to capture all the things that make Randall Flagg scary and unique, but if anyone can beat Matthew McConaughey and The Dark Tower, it’s Mike Flanagan.

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