It wasn't always the easiest film to watch, but William Friedkin's KILLER JOE certainly helped to steer Matthew McConaughey away from the rom-com genre which he seemed stuck in at the time, and towards projects like True Detective, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, and DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. KILLER JOE starred Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon, Thomas Haden Church, and Matthew McConaughey, who played a police detective who was also a charming yet deranged contract killer on the side. Now, William Friedkin is looking to bring Joe to the small-screen, and is currently developing a TV series based on the film with producer Bobby Maresco (MILLION DOLLAR BABY).
IndieWire spoke with William Friedkin at the Lumiere Festival, where the director laid out his plan for the series, which, unfortunatly, will see a new actor playing the lead role. Shifting locations from a Texas trailer park to upper-class Houston, the TV series will also find Joe working as the Chief of Detectives. "It’s set among the millionaires and billionaires, who have their wives or business competitors killed," Friedkin said. "Joe is a hired killer who frames bad guys for the murders who can’t get arrested for something else, or he makes them look like suicides…He becomes a kind of avenging angel in the series because he doesn’t just kill anybody for hire. He has to feel that guy in some way deserves to go." Casting for the series hasn't yet been finalized, but EOne is currently in talks to produce the series, and Friedkin said that he's planning on working on the show's bible in the next few weeks.
What do you folks think. Would KILLER JOE work as a series? And just who could ever replace Matthew McConaughey?