John Wick‘s director Chad Stahelski will be making the leap into the comic book world with a big screen adaptation of the Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips series Kill or Be Killed. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he will be working with his John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk from a script by Dan Casey for Columbia Pictures.
The series follows a young college student who attempts suicide only to somehow survive. It is revealed a demon saved his life, but at a cost: for every person he kills for the demon, he’ll live another month. If not, the demon will kill him. Targeting only bad people, his life soon becomes very complicated as he tries to keep his deadly deal secret from the police and his friends and family.
Brubaker is a name that is quite well known in comics for his gritty crime noir tales. He’s known for his work on Batman and Gotham Central, but his most influential work in the superhero genre is arguably his run on Captain America, reinventing the star-spangled hero for the 21st Century and re-introducing the deceased Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier.
Outside of superheroes, Brubaker has written the critically acclaimed Hollywood noir The Fade Out and Fatale, both with Phillips as the artist. Kill or Be Killed is still currently being published by Image.
