With over $330 million earned at the box office so far, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper has been one of the most successful films of the year (even though it was released in 2014). And TV networks are currently obsessed with turning feature films into TV series. So it’s only natural that those two points will come together for a TV remake of Mark Wahlberg’s 2007 action thriller Shooter, which has found its way to USA Network.
USA has given a pilot commitment to Shooter, with a stiff penalty attached if the pilot isn’t produced. It will use boththe film and the original Stephen Hunter novel Point of Impact as its source material, and Wahlberg will be executive producing alongside Stephen Levinson and Lorenzo di Bonaventura, with Paramount TV and Universal Cable Productions backing it.
Shooter will focus on Bob Lee Swagger, a decorated Marine sniper who exiles himself after a mission went wrong. He re-enters society after he gets wind of an attempt to assassinate the president. Getting involved doesn’t really do him any good at first, since he’s double-crossed and blamed for the attempt. He’s forced to go back on the run, but this time he’s trying to hunt down the person who set him up as an assassin, and why it happened in the first place.
The TV pilot will be written by John Hlavin, the scribe behind Underworld: Awakening and some episodes of The Shield. The project was originally set up at TNT last year with Paramount, and Deadline reports the script will go through more development to better suit its place at USA.
Released in March 2007, Antoine Fuqua’s Shooter failed to make any big bulletholes at the box office, bringing in just $47 million domestically on a $61 million budget. (It did only slightly better internationally, with $48.6 million earned overseas.) It wasn’t clear why anyone was interested in getting this brought to TV before, but American Sniper’s box office and critical success certainly helped that along. Check out a preview for the film below.
With its new series Dig recently premiering, USA is on the hunt for a broader diversity with the subject matter for its original series. The network is also gearing up for the debuts of the medical drama Complications, the Christian Slater-starring hacker drama Mr. Robot and Carlton Cuse’s futuristic drama Colony. Will Shooter join them?
