J.J. Abrams, Warner Bros. Team for Adaptation of Stephen King Crime Novel ‘Billy Summers’ ✦
Appian Way will also produce the project, which is being written by Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz.
A year ago, Bad Robot was developing the IP as a limited series with Zwick and Herskovitz attached to adapt, and Zwick looking to direct a good portion of the episodes, if not all.
Not one of King’s horror novels, Summers focuses on a 44-year-old hitman, the eponymous Billy Summers, who is considering retirement when he accepts one last job from a regular client. (“One last job” is always synonymous with “Things go awry,” but we’ll get to that in a moment.) Taking up a cover story that he is a novelist, Summers ensconces himself in a small town as he preps for the hit, and in his spare time actually begins to write a novel, which turns into his life story, from his little sister being killed by their mother’s boyfriend to him becoming a decorated sniper.
The hit … goes awry when the regular client doesn’t pay and Summers escapes a trap. His life gets even more complicated when he finds out there’s a bounty on his head, and he saves a rape victim named Alice. Summers and Alice then end up on a cross-country journey to rectify the hitman’s many wrongs.