Hello there, horror friends, and welcome back to Horror Happenings. There was interesting casting rumbles for a much anticipated Stephen King project and a summer favorite will be returning to the small screen after all. Let’s get to it!

Idris Elba To Play Opposite Matthew McConaughey In Dark Tower Adaptation

The long journey to bring Stephen King‘s epic Dark Tower series to the big screen has not been an easy one. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment has been trying to get the project off the ground for years, first with Universal and then with Sony. The current plan, as far as we know, includes three feature films and a TV element too. The first feature film is slated to hit theaters on January 13, 2017 with Nikolaj Arcel directing.

With all that being said, it’s about damn time that some official casting happens! And rumor has it that Idris Elba is in final negotiations to play Roland Deschain opposite Matthew McConaughey’s villainous Man in Black. According to The Wrap, Elba and McConaughey have been looking for a project to do together and I am totally fine with this one being it.

Rumors are all well and good but we’ve been teased too many times before! Last year it was Aaron Paul who was being courted to play Eddie Dean, and before that Javier Bardem was being eyed to play Deschain. Who knows what to believe?! All I know is that my fingers are crossed for the Stephen King epic to be done right and well and hopefully with a stellar cast like this one.

Wayward Pines Returning to Fox for a Second Season

Variety reported this week that Wayward Pines, executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan, will be returning to Fox despite being touted as a limited series when it first premiered this past summer. Showrunner Chad Hodge, who created the series, will not be returning. Fox has ordered ten additional episodes slated to air in the summer of 2016 and Shyamalan and Wayward Pines novelist Blake Crouch will be back with the series.

I have mixed feelings about this news. On the one hand, I was fascinated by the world of Wayward Pines and how all of the characters operated in it. I would love to learn more about the town and the goings on especially that led to the events in the finale. Speaking of the finale, on the other hand, I was a little mad at how the series wrapped things up because I tuned in thinking it would be “an event series,” ready for the conclusion to be the conclusion, not a trick that leaves the door open for more. But that’s exactly what happened once Fox found themselves with a big TV hit on their hands.

Where do you stand on this, horror friends? Are you excited for more Wayward Pines or were you turned off by how they left things? Sound off on this and Dark Tower casting rumors in the comments below!

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Featured Image Credit: DeviantArtist andyfactor

Clarke Wolfe writes Horror Happenings for Nerdist every Sunday. You can follow her on Twitter @clarkewolfe.