Stephen King’s bestseller ‘Billy Summers’ Adaptation: One of Hollywood’s A-list producers joins hands with one of the biggest A-talents of Tinseltown. Yes! JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Production teams up with Leonardo di Caprio’s Appian Way to adapt the 2021 Stephen King novel Billy Summers, whose rights had been acquired by Warner Bros.
According to Deadline Hollywood, this adaptation has been in development for the past year and was originally intended to be a ten-episode limited series. By way of Bad Robot, JJ Abrams had been attached to writers Ed Zwick and Marshall Herkowitz (The Last Samurai, ThirtySomething, and Love and Other Drugs). According to The Hollywood Reporter, Zwick is looking to direct a good number of the episodes, if not the entire season. Recent reports indicate that the team has decided to retrofit the current material for a feature film treatment. This was when Leonardo Dicaprio’s Appian Way came into the picture as co-producers.
A departure from King’s oeuvre of horror, Billy Summers follows the story of the titular hitman and former US Army sniper, who finally wants to retire. He is offered one last job of the highly-paid kind, which requires him to move into the quiet town of Midwood. His cover story is that of an aspiring writer. As he preps himself for the job, he starts writing a novel in his spare time, in which he pours his own life into the prose, from his little sister being killed by his mother’s drunk boyfriend to him eventually finding a gun, killing the boyfriend, and then becoming a decorated sniper. As he preps himself for the job, he begins writing a novel in which he spills out his own life into the prose, from his little sister being murdered by his mother’s drunk boyfriend to him eventually finding a gun, killing the boyfriend, and becoming a decorated sniper. His target is Joel Allen, a hitman, who is being taken to a courthouse to face trial for a murder charge.
The courthouse is in full view from the office space where Summers is supposed to write and meet deadlines as part of his cover. As the story progresses, Summers becomes wary of his employers. His skepticism is warranted, as things go out of hand pretty quickly. The book was critically well-received upon release.
According to Jeff Sneider of Above the Line, if the script by Zwick and Herkowitz manages to be impressive enough, Abrams might be persuaded to direct the project, with DiCaprio even winding up playing the lead. These are all speculations, however, as Deadline Hollywood had previously reported on a list of DiCaprio-led projects that haven’t yet come to fruition.
It is also unclear whether Abrams would direct the project. Since he dabbled his toes into directing feature films, his interests had mostly been directing IP Driven content, from Mission Impossible to Star Trek and Star Wars. All of his projects received either critical acclaim (Mission Impossible III, Star Trek) or mixed reviews (Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker).
He always had his foot in the medium of television, from where he had come up, being creatively involved in Alias, Felicity, and Lost, among others. As part of a massive overall deal between Bad Robot and Warner Bros., J.J. Abrams has been developing projects that had been scrapped by the Warner Bros.-Discovery merger. However, his Black Superman project, produced by him and written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is still in active development.
Bad Robot is no stranger to adapting King’s works for the small screen, as evidenced by the Hulu-produced miniseries 11.22.63, the two-season series Castle Rock on the same streamer, and the Apple TV + miniseries adaptation of Lisey’s Story. However, the reception of all three projects has been varied, with one being loved far more than the other among King purists as well as casual fans.
