With production underway on the big screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower book series, a new cast member has now been revealed.
Variety reports that Katheryn Winnick (who many know as Lagertha on the TV series Vikings) has joined the cast of The Dark Tower in an unknown role. One major character from the novels who hasn't been cast yet is Susannah Dean, a key protagonist and member of Roland's ka-tet, but there has been no official indication that this is Winnick's role.
The news of Winnick's casting comes not long after it was revealed that Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods) had come aboard the film to play Pimli, an aid to The Man in Black.
The Dark Tower movie also stars Idris Elba as The Gunslinger, Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black, Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers. Additionally, Jackie Earle Haley has been in talks to play Sayre, a key member of the Can-toi creatures, aka Low Men. The Dark Tower is scheduled for a February 17th, 2017 release from Sony, and production has started on the film in South Africa.
Director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) directs the film from a screenplay written by himself, Anders Thomas Jensen, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner (the latter two penned a previous draft).
Despite beginning with the opening line from the series' first novel, the film will not focus solely on the plot of The Gunslinger, instead opting to start somewhere in the middle of the overall Dark Tower story.
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Goldsman’s Weed Road company, and Imagine Entertainment’s Erica Huggins are producing the film, with Pinkner serving as executive producer.
Comprised of eight novels and numerous short stories and comic books (and referenced in other books as well), King’s The Dark Tower series began with 1982’s The Gunslinger, which follows Roland of Gilead (aka The Last Gunslinger) as he pursues The Man in Black through the Mid-World, a dying place with similarities to our own realm.
The Dark Tower adaptation has previously been envisioned as a movie franchise and a TV series, but at this point in time, only one movie is in place with the potential for more to come. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for future updates.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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