For fans of Shane Black, it’s awesome that he’s busier now than ever in his career. That said, his recent films, Play Dirty and The Predator, weren’t his best work. However, his latest project might turn things around. THR reports Black will write and possibly direct Sony Pictures’ adaptation of Don Pendleton’s testosterone-fueled The Executioner books, centered on elite sniper and one-man-army Mack Bolan.
Black will reteam with veteran producer Joel Silver on The Executioner, which has been serialized hundreds of times and sold millions of copies since its beginning in 1969. The character Mack Bolan is a principled killing machine who began fighting organized crime, but over the years as times changed, his foes became more diverse. In some ways, he’s a lot like Jack Reacher, or a more violent James Bond.
There’s a lot of history between Black and Silver, as their working relationship stretches back to Lethal Weapon and the original Predator.
It’s crazy that Hollywood has never gotten a Mack Bolan movie off the ground after decades of trying. William Friedkin attempted a film that would’ve starred Sylvester Stallone. Shane Salerno navigated the difficult legal waters to gain some rights to adapt Pendleton’s books, with Bradley Cooper starring as Bolan, but that attempt also failed.
No casting details yet, as development seems very early. It’ll be interesting to see if Black dials up some old friends for this one. Black recently worked with Mark Wahlberg on Play Dirty, although that role was originally for his Kiss Kiss Bang Bang star Robert Downey Jr.
I’m eager to see Black return to the same form that gave us Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Nice Guys, and more. I’m not sure he can do that adapting another person’s work, but we’ll see.
