The Banks Movie in the Works

TKO Studios is sending one of its comics to the movies. The publisher today announced that a partnership with media company Macro for a film adaptation of The Banks, the crime comic from bestselling author Roxane Gay (Hunger, Bad Feminist), artist Ming Doyle (The Kitchen), colorist Jordie Bellaire (Redlands), and letterer Ariana Maher (Eve of Extinction). In The Banks, the women of the Banks family are the most successful thieves in Chicago, but during the heist of a lifetime, they must band together to avenge a loved one taken too soon. Gay will write the film’s script and will serve as an executive producer on the film.

“I am thrilled to revisit the world of The Banks,” Gay says in a statement. “Clara, Cora, and Celia Banks are fierce women with a compelling stories that will really come alive on the silver screen. I am also excited about partnering with TKO Studios, an amazing publisher to create comics with, and MACRO, a company that is a standard-bearer for excellence with the films they make.”

Doyle adds, “I spent a lot of time with the women of The Banks family, so I’m really pleased to hear that they’ll be breaking into another medium. I’ll be looking forward to seeing this heist play out!”

Charles D. King launched Macro in 2015. The multi-platform media company focuses on telling stories by and from the perspectives of people of color. Macro co-financed the critically-acclaimed films Mudbound, Fences, Roman J. Isreal, Esq., Sorry to Bother You, and Just Mercy. It also produced Netflix’s Tigertail and co-financed and produced the upcoming movie Judas and the Black Messiah for Warner Bros. Pictures.

ComicBook.com reviewed The Banks graphic novel in April. Reviewer Nicole Drum called it “a fresh, engrossing multi-generational Robin Hood tale with a feminist twist.”

“The dialogue in the comic is especially excellent—to the point that it almost reads more like a standard prose novella than a comic—but Doyle’s art with Bellaire’s colors is just so good (no surprise to reader’s familiar with their work),” Drum writes in her review of the comic. “The pair brought a similar style to The Kitchen with similar success. It adds depth and realism to the story that enhances the entire experience. You can see the pain on Clara’s face, the love in Cora’s eyes, the internal struggle Celia feels as she tries to figure out her own place in this story.”