The Dark Tower, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, will be arriving in cinemas imminently, but there’s another project based on Stephen King’s fantasy books that is arguably more intriguing.

That is the Dark Tower television series, which has now been revealed to exist in the same universe as the film – directed by Nikolaj Arcel – and any forthcoming sequels.

Arcel told IndieWire: “I was part of writing the pilot – the first season ideas and the pilot and the second episode. It’s going to be awesome… With the film, we were really trying to create an introduction and make a standalone [story] that could live in itself, but what was also exciting, working on the TV show at the same time, is that it’s totally canon.

“We’re going back in the past. It’s very, very closely adhering to Wizard and Glass and parts of The Gunslinger novels. That was exciting to be like, ‘Okay, now we’re going to be able to lift lines directly, or [write] characters exactly as they are’. Which, as a fan, was exciting in a different way.”

The big draw for this right now is the fact that Idris Elba has agreed to reprise his role as Roland Deschain in the television version, tying the two together in a way that’s rare for spin-off shows (just look at the absence of the main Avengers from Agents of SHIELD).

Watch the trailer for The Dark Tower, in UK cinemas later this month, below.