Sam Strike joins The Dark Tower

Sam Strike has signed up to \'Dark Tower\'.

The former \'EastEnders\' actor - who rose to fame when he landed the role as Danny Dyer\'s on-screen son Johnny Carter on the BBC One soap in 2013 - is to portray Roland Deschain/ the Gunslinger in the Amazon adaptation of Stephen King\'s popular novel.

Sam appeared the confirm the news by posting a quote from the book on his Twitter account, which read: "The Man in Black fled across the desert. And the Gunslinger followed..."

Jasper Paakkonen is said to have been cast as The Man in Black, who is also known as Randall Flagg and Walter O\'Dim.

Glen Mazzara will be the showrunner for the series, and he "could not be more excited" to be working on the project.

He said: "I\'ve been a Stephen King fan for decades, and the opportunity to adapt \'The Dark Tower\' as a TV series is a great honour.

"The events of \'The Gunslinger\', \'Wizard and Glass\', \'The Wind Through the Keyhole\' and other tales need a long format to capture the complexity of Roland\'s coming of age - how he became the Gunslinger, how Walter became the Man in Black, and how their rivalry cost Roland everything and everyone he ever loved.

"I could not be more excited to tell this story."

Since departing \'EastEnders\', Sam has starred in \'Silent Witness\', \'Mindhunter\' and most recently in US horror sci-fi show \'Nightflyers\', which is based on the novella by \'Game of Thrones\' author George R. R. Martin.

A film version of \'The Dark Tower\' was released in 2017 and starred Idris Elba as Roland and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black.