‘The Dark Tower’ Producers Are Planning A TV Spin-Off And Idris Elba Is Involved

After years in development hell, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower finally comes to theaters early next year, but that’s not all fans of Mid-World can expect. Right from the beginning, The Dark Tower‘s producers have been planning a companion TV show that would expand on the series’ very-extensive backstory, but we haven’t heard anything the proposed series in months.

The movie version of The Dark Tower stars Idris Elba as the gunslinger Roland Deschain, and according to Entertainment Weekly, he’ll also be involved in the TV show. The series will mostly stick to adapting the fourth book in King’s saga, Wizard and Glass, which is a prequel that fills in Roland’s backstory. It’s expected Elba will appear in some sort of framing device, while another actor will play the younger Roland for the bulk of the series. Child actor Tom Taylor will also appear as Jake Chambers, a surrogate son to Roland, who has mysterious visions of the titular Dark Tower.

Ah, but what about The Dark Tower‘s other big star, Matthew McConaughey He’ll playing the villainous Man in Black in the movie, but he hasn’t yet signed on to appear in the TV show. Luckily the Man in Black is an ageless, interdimensional sorcerer who has taken on many forms throughout the years, so somebody else could play the character if the producers aren’t willing to step up and pay McConaughey that Lincoln MKC money.

The Dark Tower film director Nikolaj Arcel and his co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen are overseeing the series, which is expected to run a typical cable season of 10 to 13 episodes. The producers of The Dark Tower also released this map, featuring some places that will be visited during the course of the TV series…

It isn’t yet known where The Dark Tower TV series will air, but production company MRC has a relationship with Netflix (they do House of Cards). Given how much money Netflix is planning to throw around on original programming, it’s a decent bet that they’ll be The Dark Tower‘s new home.

It’ll be interesting to see if this “companion TV series” concept works out. If it does, you can expect Hollywood slinging a lot more of them in the future.