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The Dark Tower casts a newcomer as Jake Chambers

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The Dark Tower casts a newcomer as Jake Chambers
11 March 2016

Casting gossip and announcements are coming thick and fast as the long-awaited movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower finally moves into gear.

Variety has reported that Tom Taylor, who most recently starred in The Last Kingdom and Doctor Foster for the BBC - so will be known by British viewers, but perhaps not the rest of the world, has been chosen to play the pivotal role of Jake Chambers, following a worldwide search for a suitable youngster to play the part.

The boy is the protege of Idris Elba's Roland Deschain, who was confirmed at the start of this month to face off against Matthew McConaughey as the villainous Randall Flagg.

Aaron Paul has also been rumoured to have been approached to play Eddie Dean, although this has still not been confirmed. King fans clearly agree with this choice, though - our poll currently stands at 97 per cent of voters being in favour of him playing the role.

Jake features in the first book of the series, as Roland meets him while chasing the Man in Black. However, King himself and director Nikolaj Arcel have already said that the movie will begin in medias res, and will not be a straight adaptation of just one book in the series of eight, but could take in material from more volumes.

Meanwhile, a new release date was recently announced of 17 February, 2017, with shooting due to begin next month. It'll be here before we know it...

(Image: BBC)