Stephen King fans, rejoice — JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions and the iconic horror author are in early talks for a Billy Summers limited series.
The project will be between six and 10 episodes and will soon be shopped around to cable networks, according to Deadline, which reported the news exclusively on Tuesday.
This will be the duo’s fourth project together following Apple TV+’s Lisey’s Story and Hulu’s Castle Rock and 11.22.63.
Billy Summers is King’s 63rd novel and his most recent one to be published, having been released in August 2021. The New York Times best-seller follows the title character, Billy Summers, a hitman considering retirement when he’s offered one final job. He’s hired by mobster Nick Majarian to take out a fellow hitman named Joel Allen, who is facing the death penalty for gunning down one man during a poker game and wounding another. To complete the task, Summers must ingratiate himself into a sleepy town by pretending to be a writer.
Also Read: Lisey’s Story: How JJ Abrams Knows When to Stop Adding Details to a Fantasy World
King also has other television projects in the works. Lucy Liu is set to star in a Blumhouse Television production of another one of King’s more recent novels — Later, a story about a boy with a secret power, according to Collider, At Hulu, Chris Messina (I Care a Lot) and Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) are set to star in The Boogeyman, a film adaptation of King’s 1978 Night Shift collection, according to Deadline.
Abrams teased an upcoming King collaboration during a conversation with MovieMaker about Lisey’s Story back in May, hinting that, “there’s a thing that we’re working on that is an original thing that I think is really nutty and thrilling.”
At the time we spoke, Billy Summers had not yet been published, although it’s hard to say whether Abrams was talking about this project or one we have yet to hear about. In 2020, Bad Robot was developing a television offshoot of The Shining called The Overlook with HBO Max, though the streamer opted not to move forward with it in August and it was being shopped elsewhere, Deadline reported.
Main Image: Billy Summers by Stephen King book cover. Photo Credit: Scribner.
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