Shane Black & Producer Joel Silver Reunite For Sony’s Adaptation Of Action Novel ‘The Executioner’

Filmmaker Shane Black and producer Joel Silver have a longstanding working relationship, going back to “Lethal Weapon” and having been tapped by Silver for a supporting acting role in the landmark sci-fi actioner “Predator.” The two haven’t worked together since the underrated crime comedy “The Nice Guys” (Silver was involved with “Play Dirty” until an abrupt exit over claims of “verbal abuse“). Still, they are reuniting for a feature adaptation of Don Pendleton‘s action-adventure novel “The Executioner” after decades lingering in development limbo.

The framing in the project’s announcement at The Hollywood Reporter gives us the impression that the main aim here is to turn “The Executioner” into a franchise starter for Sony Pictures, as they make it clear that the studio has secured the rights to the string of Pendleton novels featuring tough guy protagonist, Mack Bolan (A skilled American sniper who ends up going up against the Mafia, the KGB, terrorists, and cyber-criminals).

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Black, who may end up directing the action flick, will turn the book into a script with help from screenwriting collaborators Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry. Silver, of course, is set to produce “The Executioner” alongside Angry Films‘ Don Murphy and Susan Montford.

An official synopsis for the first Pendleton novel via Amazon:

Overseas, Mack Bolan was dubbed “Sgt. Mercy” for the compassion he showed the innocent. On the home front, they’re calling him the Executioner for what he’s doing to the guilty. In the jungles of Southeast Asia, American sniper Mack Bolan honed his skills. After twelve years, with ninety-five confirmed hits, he returns home to Massachusetts. But it’s not to reunite with his family, it’s to bury them—victims in a mass murder/suicide. Even though Bolan’s own father pulled the trigger, he knows the old man was no killer. He was driven to madness by Mafia thugs who have turned his idyllic hometown into a new kind of war zone.

Speaking of “Play Dirty,” Black isn’t new to the world of literary adaptations, as that one featured the hardboiled Don Westlake character of Parker, maybe best known from films like “Point Blank” and “Payback.” Before that, he had been trying to get a movie going featuring pulp and comic book hero “Doc Savage,” but it never came together after years of trying to get to the big screen, and Dwayne Johnson was once attached to star.

We’ll have to wait to see who they’ll end up casting as Mack Bolan; however, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the in-demand and charming leading man Ryan Gosling (“Project Hail Mary,” “The Fall Guy”) could be recruited after working with Black on “The Nice Guys.” Then again, Gosling is a busy guy these days, and maybe after leading “The Gray Man” (sort of similar book adaptation) for The Russo Brothers, he might want to focus on other things.

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There have been a couple of attempts over the film’s development, including one from the late William Friedkin, which wasn’t all that surprising with credits such as “The French Connection,” “Sorcerer,” and “To Live & Die In L.A” sharing a similar tone. Friedkin had wanted Sly Stallone to play Bolan in his unmade version.