Most of the parts of the books that take place in New York City don’t include Roland actually being in New York, and those that do are certainly not found early in the books.
Originally, The Dark Tower was filming in South Africa, though according to Ron Howard, they are now in New York City.
Still, Howard remained the primary producer on The Dark Tower series, and is certainly part of the reason that the movie is now filming.
While Ron Howard refers to Idris Elba and director Nikolaj Arcel as his dream team, we’d include Howard himself in that category.