Before Roland the Gunslinger lost everything and set out on his grim quest for knowledge and revenge in the events of The Gungslinger he was forging the roots of his legend in the distant land of Mejis. In 2018, the TV series Wizard and Glass will explore the these events and act as a prequel to upcoming Dark Tower movie.
In the years prior to the Man in Black’s flight across the desert, before Roland the Gunslinger set out in pursuit of him, there was a nefarious court advisor, a king’s son, and a lush world that had yet to move on. Told as a campfire story spun by Roland himself, Wizard and Glass, the fourth novel in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, takes place decades before the events of the first book, The Gunslinger. The novel finds Roland picking up his guns for the first time as the youngest Gunslinger in his home country of Gilead. Unfortunately for the burgeoning hero, his father’s court i been infiltrated by a dark wizard named Marten Broadcloak, the manipulative a-hole soon to be known as the Man in Black.
Idris Elba will star as Roland, but the real story will be in the hands of another actor playing a younger version of the last gunslinger.
Don’t expect Wizard and Glass to play out like a standard six-gun-themed sword and sorcery tale. This is dark, harrowing drama on par with Game of Thrones. The book’s oil-conspiracy plot has eerie parallels to the real world as elite magnates make shady deals with freedom fighters in an attempt to improve their bottom line.
The star of The Dark Tower, Idris Elba, has already signed-on to narrate as the young-Roland’s voiceover, though the younger Roland himself — who will star in Wizard and Glass — remains un-cast. It’s also still unclear whether Matthew McConaughey play a young Marten Broadcloak. Still, considering the Man in Black’s shape-shifting skill set, McConaughey isn’t necessary for continuity.
Matthew McConaughey as The Man in Black
Though Wizard and Glass has yet to find a home on a network, that hasn’t stopped MRC and Sony Pictures from commission an entire season of the series.
Wizard and Glass is set to air sometime in 2018, after the release of The Dark Tower film on February 17, 2017.
