Exciting news for fans of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner‘s series Red is on the horizon. Word on the street has it that NBC is optioning the series that spawned two feature films for an hour-long TV show option. Even though there’s no specific season announcement with this news, these retired spies better be ready to get back to work!
The show is being developed by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, the writers who penned both the 2010 film and its 2013 sequel, and they will again be working with producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian on the adaptation.
If you’re not familiar, Red stands for Retired and Extremely Dangerous, and tells the stories of a group of over-the-hill spies who come out of retirement when the CIA dispatches an assassin with one of their fellow spies in his sights. The 2010 film gave us these spies in the forms of Dame Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, and Karl Urban. Yes, Dame Mirren wielding a sniper rifle is every bit as fantastic and awe inspiring as you would imagine.
According to Deadline, “the TV series version will retain the core concept of the films but will be set in a more grounded and authentic world, focusing on the characters’ darkly hilarious struggles to survive civilian life as they simultaneously fight for and against the very organization that threw them out.” Does this mean it will be more of a neighborhood drama with some high action moments sprinkled in? We shall see. I think it’s safe to say that we probably won’t have the same cast as the movies, but this will be a cool moment in television if a network show features a starring cast all of retirement age, right?
Who do you think they should get to play our aging spies? Tell me your fancasts in the comments below! (I mean, I could totally see Sir Patrick Stewart with a weapon, can’t you?)
