The Walking Dead alum Michael Rooker has been tapped to co-star opposite Sam Strike and Jasper Pääkkönen in Amazon’s pilot The Dark Tower, an adaptation of Stephen King’s book, which has started production.

The Dark Tower TV series, from executive producer/showrunner Glen Mazzara and MRC, is independent from the 2017 film and is meant to be a more faithful retelling of the book than the movie was. I hear it takes place many years before the events depicted in the feature and will focus on the origin story of Roland Deschain’s (Strike) – how he first became a gunslinger and got his guns, his first conflict with the man in black (Pääkkönen), his first love and his first mission as a gunslinger.

Pääkkönen is believed to be playing Marten, the character Roland is out to kill. I hear Rooker also plays a main villain and might be Eldred Jonas from the books, a failed gunslinger.

The cast of the pilot also is believed to include Jerome Flynn and Joana Ribeiro.

King’s eight Dark Tower books draw from multiple genres, including dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror and Western.

In addition to his role as Merle Dixon on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Rooker is known for playing Yondu Udonta in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchise. He next will be seen in the features Fantasy Island, a horror reboot of the classic TV series, and Monster Problems, opposite Dylan O’Brien. Rooker is repped by Gersh and LINK.

2019 Amazon Pilots & Series Orders