Even though it kind of falls apart at the end, 100 Bullets would make a great TV series, so naturally Hollywood wants to turn it into a movie. However, at least it might have some great talent on board.
According to THR, Tom Hardy is producing an adaptation of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s graphic novel series with an eye to star (although the books are really more of an ensemble piece) for New Line Cinema, which handles the grittier, stranger DC Vertigo comics while Warner Bros. handles DC’s big superhero titles. Dean Baker will co-produce through the duo’s production company, Son & Baker.
The comics have an intriguing set-up: A man named Agent Graves comes to you with a briefcase. Inside the briefcase are a gun, 100 rounds of ammo, and the evidence proving that a certain person ruined your life. You’re told that if you use the gun and bullets provided to kill this person, no law enforcement agency will come after you. Would you take it?
From there, the novel sprawls across plenty of characters and stretches all the way back to the first American settlers. The story kind of collapses under its own weight, but it’s still an intriguing read, and it would make for great television since it weaves between an overarching narrative and what appear to be, at least at first, anthology stories. Back in 2011, David Goyer planned to adapt the comics for Showtime, but that clearly has fallen by the wayside.
THR says that they’re still working from a script by Chris Borrelli (The Vatican Tapes), although I assume this will continue to go through more screenwriters. The plot is under wraps, “but insiders say the plan is to stay true to the comic,” which leaves Hardy’s role a mystery if he wants to sign on. If they stay true to the graphic novel, the two “leads” of the first arc, “First Shot, Last Call”, are Graves, who’s in his 60s, and Isabelle “Dizzy” Cordova, a young Hispanic woman. There are a few other characters littered about and their prominence grows as the series continues, but contained to a first feature, you’d really need to nail down Graves and Dizzy.
It will be interesting to see if Hardy can get any momentum behind the project, and what direction he intends to take it. I wonder if 100 Bullets was the “DC thing” he mentioned to us back in May:
It’s really good actually, it contains elements of all kinds of stuff. From Ocean’s Eleven, to Batman, you can get all the wrappers out and it would be a big, really cool, Technicolor, Pulp Fiction…It’s a psychological fuckfest, it’s absolutely awesome. It’s as if you would take Transmetropolitan and make it happen, but it’s not that out there it’s something which is much more real world. It could be like Heat, it could be fucking awesome.
Hardy also hinted that this was a story that would go TV and movie, and 100 Bullets is certainly big enough to cover that canvas.
