‘Dark Tower’ TV Series Shooting Pilot

It’s only been a couple of years since Idris Elba brought gunslinger Roland Deschain to the big screen in The Dark Tower, in a film that pretty much bombed at the box office and was universally hated by Stephen King Fans. Many years back, when director Ron Howard original envisioned a series of faithful films and a spin off TV series, he pitched a particularly ambitious idea that would see each film accompanied by a television show, bridging the story between each major film. The TV series would essentially tell that would tell the backstory of Roland, as featured in the books. But sadly, Universal Pictures lost their nerve and decided to only develop one single film. As the first book is pretty mundane compared to the rest of the eight published books, film makers decided to write their own story based loosely on the books, resulting in an unintelligible mess.

Well it seems that not everyone has lost their taste for a Stephen King cinematic universe, as Amazon have rocked up with a green light for a Pilot. Deadline report that Sam Strike (Nightflyers) has been cast as a young Roland Deschain, as the series would look at Roland’s early days.

The Dark Tower TV series is independent from the film and is meant to be a more faithful retelling of the book than the movie was. I hear it will take place many years before the events depicted in the feature and will focus on Roland Deschain’s (Strike) origin story – how he first became a gunslinger and got his guns, his first conflict with the man in black (Pääkkönen), his first love and his first mission as a gunslinger.

The quote refer to Jasper Pääkkönen (BlacKkKlansman) who will co-star in the pilot as the Man in Black, and other news reports that Michael Rooker is also on board for the pilot.

Michael Rooker has been cast in the Amazon Studios adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, currently filming the pilot episode on location in Croatia.
Rooker’s role in the series pilot is still being kept under wraps, but there is no lack of information and speculation around the much-anticipated series

Don’t get your hopes up just yet, as Amazon have dropped pilots quicker than a crap in rattlesnake country, but if it does hit the mark, the series will consist of a total of 13 episodes. It’s being developed by Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead) and Akiva Goldsman (Titans, Star Trek: Discovery).

The plan is to launch in 2020.