Sam Strike & Jasper Pääkkönen Cast In Amazon’s ‘The Dark Tower’ Pilot
Amazon’s upcoming pilot adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ has found its Gunslinger and Man In Black as Sam Strike & Jasper Pääkkönen land the leading roles.
For those of you unfamiliar with the King novel series, it is something of a mash-up between fantasy, sci-fi, the wild west, and Arthurian legend. The story follows Roland Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of “Arthur Eld”. The tv drama is said to take place early on in the novel series, and follow the Gunslinger on his first mission, and first encounter with the Man In Black. Sam Strike is set to take the role of Roland Deschain, aka the Gunslinger, whilst Jasper Pääkkönen will star as the villainous Man In Black.
Strike has most recently been starring in the Netflix/Syfy ‘Nightflyers’ but is probably best known to UK audiences for playing Johnny Carter in ‘EastEnders’. He can next be seen in Sky Atlantic’s upcoming miniseries ‘Chernobyl’. Pääkkönen will be familiar to ‘Vikings’ fans, where he has been starring as Halfdan the Black. He also appeared in Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKkKlansman’. Glen Mazzara is set to serve as exec producer and showrunner, whose previous work includes ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘The Shield’.
This is not the first time ‘The Dark Tower’ has adapted for screen. A film version was made back in 2017 with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey taking the lead roles, but really didn’t land well with fans. The tv series was originally planned as a spin-off to the film, but given the reaction the movie got, it is now going to be an unconnected adaptation much closer to the original source novels.
‘The Dark Tower’ is currently only a pilot, so may not go to series. However, if Amazon like what they see, it could begin full production later this year. We’ll let you know if and when we hear more.
