There are comic-book premises built for television, and then there is “Sex Criminals,” the cult Image Comics title about two people who discover they can stop time when they orgasm and decide, naturally, to use that power to rob banks. After years of development chatter, the live-action adaptation has taken a real step forward.
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Imogen Poots and John Reynolds are set to lead the Prime Video series, playing Suze and Jon, respectively. The show is based on the comic by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, which launched in 2013 and ran for 31 issues and one special before concluding in 2020.
The premise is deliberately absurd, but the comic’s appeal was never just the gag. “Sex Criminals” used its high-concept hook as a way into intimacy, shame, fantasy, anxiety, and the strange private myths people build around sex. The bank-robbing part gave it momentum; the relationship mess gave it staying power.
The series comes from Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon, and Tze Chun, with Nanjiani also expected to appear onscreen. LuckyChap and Amazon MGM Studios are behind the adaptation, with Fraction and Zdarsky also involved as executive producers.
Poots’ recent credits include “Outer Range,” “The Chronology of Water,” and “Hedda,” along with earlier work in “Green Room,” “The Art of Self-Defense,” “28 Weeks Later,” and “Vivarium.” Reynolds, meanwhile, broke out in “Search Party” and has also appeared in “Stranger Things,” “Yellowjackets,” “Save Yourselves!,” and “Oh, Hi!”
No premiere date has been announced yet, but the casting suggests “Sex Criminals” is finally moving past the will-they-or-won’t-they stage. For a project that spent a decade as one of those “could this possibly work as a TV show?” adaptations, Suze and Jon now have faces—and Prime Video has one of the stranger adult comic-book swings on its slate. [THR]
