Comic fans rejoice. 100 Bullets, from writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso – a property long-thought perfect for a television series – looks to finally be headed to Showtime via writer/director David S. Goyer.
100 Bullets is the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning saga spanning a massive 100 issues and published under DC’s Vertigo imprint from 1999-2009. The series follows the mysterious Agent Graves, as he hands seemingly random individuals a briefcase filled with 100 untraceable bullets, a handgun, and the evidence needed to seek vengeance from those who had victimized them in the past. Appearing to be straightforward and episodic at first, 100 Bullets would later morph into a tightly-woven conspiracy yarn, surrounding a centuries-old organization known as The Trust, and Agent Graves’ machinations against them.
Because of the series’ length and complexity, adapting it as a major motion picture would not only have been foolhardy, but any such production would surely have been met with great disappointment and outcry from the material’s devoted fan base. (Here’s looking at you Preacher).
That fan base’s faith now rests in the well-tested hands of David S. Goyer – who will serve as both writer and executive producer on the proposed series.
Of course, HBO – having produced fantastic and similarly themed programs like The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire – would seem like the first choice. However, Home Box Office was apparently beaten to the punch by rival network Showtime – which has recently begun to utilize the comics medium as a source for new programming.
Earlier in the year, it was announced that Showtime would be turning John Layman and Rob Guillory’s cannibalistic detective comic Chew into a series as well.
By now, Goyer’s name should be familiar to those who have been watching comic-based films for the last 13 years or so. Goyer first hit it big adapting Marvel’s day-walking vampire Blade into a film that took many by surprise with its quality mix of humor, violence and atmosphere. Goyer then went on to write the screenplay for Guillermo Del Toro’s Blade II, and then wrote and directed the poorly-received end to the trilogy, Blade: Trinity.
After that, however, Goyer managed to bounce back, collaborating with Christopher Nolan on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. After his work on Nolan’s end to the trilogy in the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises, Goyer graduated to Superman, by rebooting the big red ‘S’ in Man of Steel.
Goyer isn’t all Hollywood, however. The writer has also tried his hand at writing actual comic books – and was quite successful at that as well. He worked on the DC Comics title JSA with not only highly-regarded comics scribe James Robinson, but also Geoff Johns – the man who would later become the DC’s Chief Creative Officer and will help reshape the DC universe by rebooting it in September.
100 Bullets could be a perfect fit for Goyer’s street level aesthetic. His take on the mean streets of New York and Gotham (in Blade and Batman Begins, respectively) will have prepared him for the equally harsh world of 100 Bullets.
There’s no word on whether Azzarello will share the same level of involvement as his peers do with their television adaptations (Robert Kirkman on The Walking Dead and Brian Michael Bendis on Powers) – though it should go without saying that any such participation would only serve to enhance the program.
Certainly the many fans of the series will be watching this news closely. Unfortunately, because 100 Bullets is still in the early stages of development, there’s not much else to go on. For now, we’ll just have to deliberate the casting choices that would best suit the series.
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Stay tuned, as more 100 Bullets news is announced.
