MAD MAX: FURY ROAD's Abbey Lee In Talks For Female Lead in THE DARK TOWER

I just finished reading The Gunslinger, the first book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, so I'm a little confused at Deadline's report that model and Mad Max: Fury Road actress Abbey Lee is in talks to play a character named Tirana, who is supposedly the female lead of the upcoming movie adaptation.

The reason I'm confused is that a character named Tirana doesn't appear in the first book. That character apparently doesn't show up until the seventh book, and it's a very small role, certainly not a female lead. The thing about the first book is that there really isn't a major female lead; one of the only women in the book is a bartender named Allie who Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) encounters while he's chasing the man in black (Matthew McConaughey). Could "Tirana" be a placeholder name for that character? If so, why would the filmmakers do that? Allie isn't a secretive character, but a straight adaptation of the real book version of Tirana makes even less sense (introducing a small role from the seventh book right off the bat doesn't sound right).

Fans have been confused ever since Deadline's initial announcement earlier today, and they recently updated their post with some information about the character: "she’s sexy and dangerous, she has fake human skin and cold snake-like eyes." That doesn't really do much to clear up the confusion, but maybe those of you who have read beyond just the first book can make some sense of all this in the comments.

Nikolaj Arcel is directing The Dark Tower, which currently has a release date of January 13th, 2017. (They're going to have to start shooting pretty quickly in order to meet that date.) Lee will next be seen on the big screen in Gods of Egypt.