THE DARK TOWER TV Series is In Development and It Will Adhere Closely To The Novels
One of the major things that we learned about The Dark Tower movie is that it acts as a sequel to the novel series that Stephen King wrote. Because of that, I wasn't sure where the TV series would stand in regards to the timeline. Would it continue the story that the movie will tell, or would it be something completely different?
We have some answers to those questions today thanks to a recent interview with the film's director Nikolaj Arcel, who is also helping with the series. While talking to The Playlist, the director revealed that the TV series will dive back into the books. Specifically, Wizard and Glass and The Gunslinger.
"It’s being written. I was part of writing the pilot, like the first season ideas and the pilot and the second episode. It’s gonna be awesome. What was exciting about that, whereas with the film, we were really trying to create an introduction and make a standalone film that could sort of live in itself, but what was also exciting, working on the TV show at the same time, is that is totally canon."
It's good to hear that the series will be canon, and it's interesting that they are tweaking the direction to make a TV series work better. He went on to say:
“We’re going back in the past. It’s very, very closely adhering to the ‘Wizard and Glass’ novel and parts of ‘The Gunslinger’ novel. That was exciting to be even more like, ‘Okay, now we’re going to be able to even lift lines directly, or like [write] characters exactly as they are. Which, as a fan, was exciting in a different way.”
So, if you're a fan of the book and you were hoping for some kind of adaptation of them, you're going to get that with the series! When previously talking about the series screenwriter Akiva Goldsman told Deadline:
“The first episode of a show has been written, and we hope to retain Ron’s original idea to mix platforms…Idris for sure is part of this, and if the movie is Roland Deschain the gunslinger, the show is his origin story, based on the fourth novel in the series, ‘Wizard and Glass.'”
It'll be interesting to see how they handle this adaptation because Wizard and Glass focuses on the adventures of a young 14-year-old Roland as he becomes The Gunslinger. It has a story-within-a-story narrative, though, so Elba's older version of the character could still play a part of the story.
It's also said that Dark Tower star Tom Taylor, who plays Jake Chambers in the movie, is also expected to appear in the series. Matthew McConaughey’s involvement still has yet to be seen.