Billy Summers: Edward Zwick to direct Stephen King limited series for Bad Robot

JJ Abrams’ production company Bad Robot has assembled a limited series package that is sure to kick off a bidding war between cable networks and streamers: an adaptation of the Stephen King novel Billy Summers, which was just published last August. (You can pick up a copy at THIS LINK.) Deadline reports that Edward Zwick (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) is attached to direct the series and is writing the show with Marshall Herskovitz. This project is in such early stages that they’re not sure yet how many episodes the series will consist of, they’re just saying it will be somewhere in the range of “six to ten episodes”.

Billy Summers tells the following story:

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 previously worked with King on Lisey’s Story, Castle Rock, and 11.22.63.

Zwick and Herskovitz were the creators of the TV series Thirtysomething back in the ’80s. Zwick’s other directing credits include About Last Night, Glory, Legends of the Fall, Courage Under Fire, The Siege, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, Defiance, Love & Other Drugs, Pawn Sacrifice, and Trial by Fire.

I haven’t read Billy Summers yet, but just like I read every King novel sooner or later, I also eventually get around to watching every King adaptation. So I’ll definitely be watching this limited series, wherever it ends up airing.