Idris Elba will reprise his role as Roland Deschain in a TV version of the sci-fi horror film "The Dark Tower." The companion TV series is scheduled to be released in 2018.
Recently, an unnamed source at production company MRC and the film's co-screenwriter and producer , Akiva Goldsman, revealed to Entertainment Weekly some exciting details about "The Dark Tower" spin-off TV series.
The TV series will potentially fill in the backstory to "The Dark Tower" film, which is based on Stephen King's "The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass." The first season will be a full run of 10-13 episodes, with MRC and Sony Pictures financing.
Elba has signed on to reprise the role of an older Roland Deschain. Apart from Elba, Tom Taylor, 15, will also reprise his part as a boy from present-day New York, Jake Chambers, who Roland must call upon to complete his quest.
The duo will serve as the framing device for the show's focal story, which happens many years before the events depicted in the upcoming film. Since the TV series will dive deeper into the origins of the gunslinger, a younger actor will be cast to play a young Roland.
"In the movie, Roland is suffering tremendous loss," Goldsman added. "The most concrete, personal, existential heartbreak a character can have. If the movie chronicles his final reach toward hope again, the TV show is the loss of that hope."
The producer also promised that the TV show will be more faithful to the original novel than the movie version. Filming for the TV series will start in early 2017 with an intended air date in 2018.
In the spin-off TV series, Goldsman will serve as one of the executive producers, along with Jeff Pinkner and Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, Slash Film has learned. Nikolaj Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen have collaborated to work on the script for the TV series.
More details about the project will be revealed soon. Check out "The Dark Tower" trailer below: