Amazon's The Dark Tower series casts Sam Strike, Jasper Pääkkönen to lead

Just like Stephen King‘s fantasy epic, Amazon’s planned series based on The Dark Tower begins with the Man in Black and the Gunslinger who followed.

Amazon is said to have cast Sam Strike of Syfy’s Nightflyers as Roland Deschain (a.k.a. The Gunslinger) and Jasper Pääkkönen of BlacKKKlansman is believed to be playing Martel Broadcloak (a.k.a. the Man in Black, a.k.a. Randall Flagg), EW has learned.

Amazon declined to comment officially. Deadline was the first to report the news.

Unlike 2017’s The Dark Tower movie, which starred Idris Elba as Roland and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black, this series is reportedly independent of the film, set years before the events that played out in director Nikolaj Arcel’s work.

Glenn Mazzara, an alum of The Walking Dead, serves as showrunner on the planned series, which pulls from the world documented in King’s novel series.

“I’ve been a Stephen King fan for decades, and the opportunity to adapt The Dark Tower as a TV series is a great honor,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. “The events of The Gunslinger, Wizard and Glass, The Wind Through the Keyhole, and other tales need a long format to capture the complexity of Roland’s coming of age — how he became the Gunslinger, how Walter became the Man in Black, and how their rivalry cost Roland everything and everyone he ever loved. I could not be more excited to tell this story. It feels like being given the key to a treasure chest. And oh yeah, we’ll have billy-bumblers!”

As this project progresses, Amazon is also planning another fantasy saga with a series based on The Lord of the Rings to be set during The Second Age, long before the events portrayed in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy.

The Dark Tower hasn’t yet landed a formal pilot order, but one seems imminent with the two leads now set.

Related content:

  • The Dark Tower TV series somehow still ‘alive’ at Amazon
  • Stephen King on why The Dark Tower movie didn’t work

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