The Dark Tower: Jackie Earle Haley in talks to join Stephen King movie

The Dark Tower just got a little darker. Jackie Earle Haley is in negotiations to play the fearsome vampire leader Sayre in Sony’s big-screen adaptation of the sprawling Stephen King fantasy, EW has confirmed.

Haley, who is known for playing the masked vigilante Rorschach in Watchmen and the supernatural killer Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, would join a cast including Idris Elba as the heroic gunslinger Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis, the so-called man in black.

Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) is directing The Dark Tower, which he co-wrote with Anders Thomas Jensen, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner.

King’s epic tale spans multiple books and follows Deschain on a quest to find a mythical tower at the center of all time and space and protect it from the forces of evil. The author himself recently told EW the movie will not adapt the plot of the first book, 1982’s The Gunslinger, and will instead begin in medias res.

The Dark Tower is slated to open Feb. 17, 2017.

Deadline first reported Haley’s potential casting.