Hulu developing a 'Hitman' series from John Wick creator Derek Kolstad
Deadline reports streaming giant Hulu has greenlit a television series based on the global best-selling video game "Hitman" and the series will be written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad
Kolstad, who is no stranger to world building assassin properties, will write the pilot script which centers on a cloned assassin-for-hire whose impeccable kill record places him in high demand among the wealthy and elite. IO Interactive's video game has gone on to sell over 25 million copies and has been the subject of two film adaptations including 2007's adequate but entertaining Hitman starring Timothy Olyphant and 2015's rather lackluster Hitman 47 starring Rupert Friend.
At first glance, Hulu's venture into the sub-genre sounds risky when you factor a landscape saturated with Marvel TV adaptations coupled with the big-screen successes of John Wick and Atomic Blonde. But unlike Marvel's adaptations, Hitman offers an entirely different recipe with it's own mythology, and most notably is not a Marvel property. And unlike Wick and Blonde, the current slate of sub-genre series for television are there for the taking considering neither broadcast, premium, nor streaming have delivered a polished series since USA Network's original series La Femme Nikita!
Kolstad is currently writing "John Wick 3" and is in the development stage for Lionsgate's Wick prequel series "Continental". With Hulu's Hitman, we now have three projects written by Kolstad, and they all deserve our attention.
