Amazon’s ‘The Dark Tower’ Casts Its Two Leads

The Dark Tower
Two lead roles have been cast for The Dark Tower series in the works at Amazon. Jasper Pääkkönen (Vikings) has been cast as The Man in Black, while Sam Strike (Nightflyers) will be playing Roland Deschain.

 

It’s been reported by Variety that the series will serve as a sort of prequel to the classic Stephen King story, and will tell the story of how the two characters first met each other. The story will tell the tale of how Roland Deschain first became The Gunslinger, and how the two characters came to be locked in an eternal battle with each other.

 

Pääkkönen’s star has been rising of late. He was a regular in History’s Vikings and recently starred in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. He is due to reunite with the director in his upcoming film Da 5 Bloods. He is also known for several Finnish films, such as Heart of a Lion, Frozen Land and Bad Boys.

 

Sam Strike has several upcoming projects, such as the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. He recently appeared in Mindhunter and starred in the now-cancelled SyFy series Nightflyers. UK fans may know him best from his run in British soap opera Eastenders.

 

Glen Mazzara is the series’ showrunner and executive producer. Originally, the series was intended to tie in closely with 2017’s The Dark Tower film, starring Idris Elba as The Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as The Man in Black. After the film’s poor critical reception and underwhelming performance at the box office, the show has been retooled and will be a more faithful adaption of King’s classic novels.

 

Fans will no doubt be hoping that the series will be a lot better than that film. Hopefully Pääkkönen and Strike are better fits for the two roles than McConaughey and Elba were. For more updates on The Dark Tower series, stay tuned to Movie News Net.