‘The Dark Tower’ companion TV series will include Idris Elba

The movie adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” is getting closer and closer with the 2017 February release. And as the premiere date approaches so do the new details on the expansive world planned for this massive book series translation. Part of that plan is a TV series that explores the books’ wild backstory, and today a few details have been revealed.

The TV show will focus on the fourth novel in the series, “Wizard and Glass,” according to Entertainment Weekly, and both Idris Elba and Tom Taylor will reprise their roles from the film as Roland Deschain (the Gunslinger) and Jake Chambers.

Elba’s character Deschain is the protagonist of the “The Dark Tower” movie and the last surviving Arthurian gunslinger on a quest to find the aforementioned tower, in hopes of saving humanity. Chambers is Deschain’s protege, a modern-day boy plagued with visions.

Elba and Taylor will serve as a framing device for the 10- to 13-episode TV series, which will dive deeper into the origins of the gunslinger. The younger Deschain will be played by another actor.

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Matthew McConaughey, who has been cast in the film as Roland’s enemy, the Man in Black, has not been confirmed for the TV series. While McConaughey’s involvement is a possibility, the ageless sorcerer could be played by another actor in the TV show.

Other details about “The Dark Tower” TV series are sparse, but the film’s producer and co-screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman, will serve as one of the executive producers of the show. And while the TV series will hire a different showrunner, “The Dark Tower” director Nikolaj Arcel and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen are also signed on as executive producers and are working on a script for the show.

The TV series does not yet have a distributor, but the producers are aiming for a 2018 premiere.

tracy.brown@latimes.com

Twitter: @tracycbrown