Hulu Is Making A ‘Hitman’ TV Series
After attempting to bring IO Interactive’s Agent 47 (rather unsuccessfully…) to the big screen… twice… Hulu has teamed up with Fox 21 Television Studios to try and make the popular ‘Hitman’ video game into a tv series. In what seems to be a strong step in the right direction, they’ve picked Derek Kolstad, the creator of the ‘John Wick’ movies, to write the pilot script.
Whilst the movies didn’t do especially well, the video games have sold over 25 million units since the franchise launched in 2000. The story centres on the genetically enhanced clone assassin with a mysterious backstory, Agent 47, voiced by David Bateson. He is a bald man, whose most distinguishing feature is a barcode on the back of his neck, placed there at birth, indicating he is the 47th clone in the series. Thanks to the genetic meddling, he has enhanced strength, speed, stamina, and intelligence, all of which makes him better at killing people.
There have been two attempts at bringing ‘Hitman’ to screen before – ‘Hitman’, starring Timothy Olyphant, was released in 2007, and ‘Hitman: Agent 47’, starring Rupert Friend, in 2015. As usually happens with game-to-film movies, they rather messed about with the backstory of Agent 47, but the plan with the tv series is to stick closer to the story people know and love from the video games.
Given they are sticking closer to the games, I’d like to make a request to Hulu…
Give David Bateson a role.
I mean look at the guy…
I know you might want a younger actor for the lead role, given it’s probably going to be fairly action orientated, but at least have Bateson in the mix somewhere. Maybe as another clone, or the creator of the clones. We spoke to David about voicing the games, and his thoughts on the movies earlier this year, which you can listen to here.
The ‘Hitman’ tv series is currently at the pilot stage, so no guarantee it’ll go to series yet, however, IO Interactive do have two more video games in development, with the next one due for release in 2019.
