Stephen King is known as one of the most prolific authors on the planet, having dozens of best-selling novels, so it only makes sense that his books are almost routinely adapted for the screen. If this guy ever stops working, Hollywood will be out of ideas. Just recently we’ve had 11.22.63 over on Hulu, Under the Dome wrapping up in 2015, and the highly anticipated The Dark Tower film (starring Mathew McConaughey and Idris Elba) currently under production. Now another King adaptation is on the way, with a Mr. Mercedes television series officially picked up to air in 2018.
AT&T’s Audience Network picked up Mr. Mercedes to full series, with 10 episodes of the Stephen King best-seller coming to audiences. According to The Hollywood Reporter, David E. Kelly (one of the people behind shows such as Ally McBeal and The Practice) will serve as showrunner and will write the first episode. Actors Brendan Gleeson and Anton Yelchin are already tapped to play the two lead characters. Both actors are pretty familiar with adapting characters for the screen; Gleeson is arguably best known as Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter films, and Yelchin plays Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek film franchise.
For the uninitiated, Mr. Mercedes is a novel about a deranged killer who taunts a retired police detective by sending him perverse emails and letters (do people still send threats through the mail these days?). The ex-detective is forced to undergo a dangerous and potentially illegal investigation to bring his old nemesis to justice. Brendan Gleeson will play the police officer Detective Bill Hodges, with Anton Yelchin taking the role of Brady Hartsfield, an IT worker and ice cream truck driver who is secretly the Mercedes Killer. Who would have thought that the IT guy/ice cream man was a crazy person?
The novel was published back in 2014 and jumped to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. It’s also won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Mr. Mercedes is the first of a trilogy with the partially connected second book, Finders Keepers, published in 2015. End of Watch, the third book, will wrap up the trilogy and hit bookshelves on June 7. If the television show is successful, it will most likely work its way through the entire collection of source material à la Hannibal. At least until that show was cancelled.
That’s a lot to be excited about if you’re a fan of Stephen King or the Mr. Mercedes novel. The description doesn’t really set it apart from any other serial killer versus cop thrillers, but this is Stephen King we’re talking about, so quality is to be expected. The series will be arriving sometime in 2018, but keep checking in to Cinema Blend for more updates as they come.
