In an exclusive today, Deadline have revealed that Stephen King‘s 2021 crime thriller novel Billy Summers has been acquired by Warner Bros. and produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way.
Billy Summers was originally intended to be a ten-episode limited series, but instead will hit the big screen with Ed Zwick (Blood Diamond) and Marshall Herskovitz (who co-wrote The Last Samurai with Zwick) writing the screenplay. The plot synopsis for the novel reads as follows;
Billy Summers is a hitman who is looking to retire and takes one last highly lucrative job to feather his nest. The job requires him to embed himself in a quiet town, where he pretends to be an aspiring writer (he actually pours himself into the prose). He sets up in an office with a direct view of where hitman Joel Allen will be delivered to face trial for shooting two men during a poker game. Allen also has committed enough murders for some high-level mobsters to be scared the gunman will incriminate his former employers to lessen his sentence. Summers, a meticulous craftsman, becomes more and more cynical about the mobsters who’ve hired him, and his skepticism is well warranted as things go awry following the job’s completion.
Bad Robot have adapted a number of other King works including Lisey’s Story, Castle Rock and 11.22.63.
Further details on Billy Summers are yet to be revealed, but Deadline did note that “If this comes out great, it could be a project for Abrams to direct with DiCaprio playing the title character.”, so there’s a possibility we could see the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star joining the Stephen King universe. Whatever the case, best believe we’ll be updating you as soon as we know more.
