“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” And as readers of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series know, The Gunslinger (aka Roland) was not always alone on his quest. One key character who accompanied Roland was Jake Chambers, a role that has now been cast in Sony's upcoming film adaptation of King's epic series.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tom Taylor has been cast as Jake Chambers in The Dark Tower movie. In the book series, Jake first appears as an eleven-year-old who pops up in Roland's realm and joins him on his hunt for the Man in Black. Roland and Jake eventually form a father-son relationship as they face all manner of deadly obstacles throughout their adventures.
The Dark Tower marks Taylor's biggest project to date. The young actor previously appeared in three TV series: Legends, The Last Kingdom, and Doctor Foster.
Taylor joins a cast that includes Idris Elba as The Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black.
Director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) will direct from a screenplay written by himself, Anders Thomas Jensen, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner (the lattermost two penned a previous draft). Filming is expected to begin in South Africa in a little under seven weeks. Sony recently rescheduled The Dark Tower's theatrical debut for February 17th, 2017.
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. Despite beginning with the opening line from the first novel, the first 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.
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 more updates.
*Above photo courtesy of BBC America.
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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