Stephen King debuted The Dark Tower in 1982, kicking off an epic series of novels that spanned eight novels and three decades. The series blended horror, fantasy, and genre elements to create one of the author’s most beloved narratives. The storyline was loosely adapted into a film in 2017, though it failed to connect with critics nor audiences. Likely due to the amount of material that needed to be covered, the narrative faced many struggles, though a new series from Amazon aims to correct those issues with long-form storytelling. The series has reportedly recruited Game of Thrones star Jerome Flynn, who played Ser Bronn, for the adaptation.
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Flynn himself revealed the news to Mirror, noting “I’ve always said I’d like to play a cowboy – and now one has come along. I’m excited for that.”
The actor joins previously confirmed Mindhunter star Sam Strike as main character Roland Deschain and Vikings star Jasper Pääkkönen in an unspecified role.
Deadline previously detailed of the series, “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, his first love, and his first mission as a gunslinger.”
Despite 2017’s The Dark Tower being highly anticipated, the finished product didn’t entirely connect with any audiences, as review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes calculated 16 percent positive reviews for the film while its worldwide box office sits at $112 million. King himself may have supported the film leading into its release, but ultimately opened up about why he thinks the adaptation fell flat.
“The real problem, as far as I’m concerned is, they went in to this movie, and I think this was a studio edict pretty much: this is going to be a PG-13 movie. It’s going to be a tentpole movie,” King shared with Entertainment Weekly previously. “We want to make sure that we get people in there from the ages of, let’s say, 12 right on up to whatever the target age is. Let’s say 12 to 35. That’s what we want.”
“So it has to be PG-13, and when they did that I think that they lost a lot of the toughness of it and it became something where people went to it and said, ‘Well yeah, but it’s really not anything that we haven’t seen before,’” he added.
Stay tuned for details on The Dark Tower.
Are you excited by this casting announcement? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!
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