The Man in Black has added another character to his ranks, as Fran Kranz has been cast as Pimli in the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower book series.
THR revealed that Kranz is set to play Pimli, "the right-hand man of the Man in Black", in Sony's The Dark Tower film. No other details about the film version of the character have been revealed, but readers of The Dark Tower series are familiar with Pimli Prentiss as a warden who worked for the Crimson King and guarded imprisoned telepaths at Algul Siento.
Kranz is well-known to genre fans for his hilarious and heartfelt role as the stoner Marty in The Cabin in the Woods, and he recently starred as an office worker turned vampire slayer in Bloodsucking Bastards. In addition to The Cabin in the Woods, Kranz also collaborated with Joss Whedon by appearing in the TV series Dollhouse and 2012's Much Ado About Nothing.
The news of Kranz's casting comes not long after Deadline reported that Jackie Earle Haley is in talks to play Sayre, a key member of the Can-toi creatures, aka Low Men.
The Dark Tower movie will also star Idris Elba as The Gunslinger, Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black, and Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers.
Director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) will direct from a screenplay written by himself, Anders Thomas Jensen, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner (the latter two penned a previous draft). Filming is expected to begin in South Africa soon, with The Dark Tower scheduled to hit theaters on February 17th, 2017.
Despite beginning with the opening line from the first novel, the upcoming 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 more 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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