The Stephen King Dark Tower TV Series Has Been Canceled At Amazon

Amazon is no longer moving forward with its TV show adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. Deadline reports that Amazon Studios has decided not to film a pilot.

The showrunner is The Walking Dead's Glen Mazzara, who is working with production company MRC (House of Cards, Ozark, Ted) on the project. The company is now reportedly meeting with other, unspecified networks to try to get the show off the ground.

Deadline reports that The Dark Tower has been "very difficult to adapt" for TV. Not only that, but sources told the site that the pilot that Mazzara was pitching was "not on the level of other large-scope elevated genre series" that Amazon is working on, such as Wheel of Time and The Lord of the Rings. As such, it decided to part ways with the show.

Sony made a Dark Tower movie in 2017 starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, but the TV show is separate. The show is said to be focused on the origin story of gunslinger Roland Deschain and his battles with the man in black.

In the movie, these roles were played by Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, respectively, while the TV show is said to have cast Sam Strike and Jasper Pääkkönen for the parts.

While Amazon Studios won't move forward with The Dark Tower, the company is producing the aforementioned Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings shows, while the company has also hired Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge for $20 million per year to create new content for the network.