Stephen King & J.J. Abrams Reteam on Billy Summers Adaptation

By Spencer Perry

Author Stephen King and J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot are collaborating once again with Deadline reporting that the production company is gearing up to adapt recent King novel Billy Summers. My So-Called Life and Nashville EPs Ed Zwick & Marshall Herskovitz are attached to adapt the novel with Zwick in line to direct. Details on the show, a limited-series adaptation, are light at this point with the potential for the adaptation to run six to 10 episodes with "high-end cable networks and streamers" being the targeted homes for the show. King gave an interview over the summer where he suggested Jake Gyllenhaal should take on the title role.

Billy Summers marks the latest collaboration between King and Abrams' company having worked together on three other TV shows in the past with another in the works. The first series to come from King x Abrams was 11.22.63, the limited series adaptation of King's novel starring James Franco that was released on Hulu. After this came another Hulu joint, the anthology series Castle Rock which remixed multiple King tales into an all-new narrative, running for two seasons on the streamer. Last year Bad Robot's collaboration with King went to a new level with the Apple TV+ mini-series of Lisey's Story, all the episodes of which King himself wrote. Another show was also in the works with Overlook, a show related to the iconic hotel from The Shining, but it failed to be picked up.

"Well, given his age, which is probably mid-40s, there are a lot of actors that could do that part very well," King shared with Rolling Stone about Billy Summers. "I think maybe the most underrated actor working right now is Jake Gyllenhaal and he'd made a wonderful Billy. But we're just blue-skying here. There are a lot of people who would be good."  

Released in August of last year, the official description for Billy Summers from King's website reads as follows:

"Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He's a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he'll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong? How about everything."

"This spectacular can't-put-it-down novel is part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It's about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption."

Who do you want to see take on the role of Billy Summers? Sound off in the comments below.

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