Matthew McConaughey will be reuniting with Nic Pizzolatto to solve another mystery, this time in a feature adaptation of the Mike Hammer private eye book series, Deadline reports.
First teaming up on the debut season of True Detective, the pair received acclaim, including Emmy nominations, for their work.
Now, in collaboration with Skydance Media, McConaughey will portray the role of the hard-boiled detective while Pizzolatto will write the script.
Hammer, a no-holds-barred investigator who’s not afraid to kill to bring criminals to justice, was introduced in the novel I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane in 1947, going on to appear in over two dozen books first by Spillane, then by Max Allan Collins after Spillane’s death in 2006, with the final entry in the series, Baby, It’s Murder, being released this year.
The pulpy crime-solver, who inspired characters such as Dirty Harry, James Bond, and Jack Reacher, has previously been portrayed on screen by Ralph Meeker in 1955’s Kiss Me, Deadly, Armand Assante in 1982’s I, The Jury, Stacy Keach and Darren McGavin in several TV movies and shows, and even Spillane himself in 1963’s The Girl Hunters.
McConaughey and Pizzolatto had previously discussed another collaboration after True Detective, including a follow-up season with McConaughey’s character Rustin Cohle and Woody Harrelson as Marty Hart, before this announcement.
McConaughey, who has been absent from the big screen since 2019, save for a voice role in 2021’s Sing 2, returns this year with The Rivals of Amziah King and the AppleTV disaster thriller The Lost Bus.
The Mike Hammer adaptation will be produced by Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Don Granger, Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady, Pendleton Media’s Benjamin Forkner, and Ken F. Levin, with Max Allan Collins executive-producing and Spillane’s widow Jane Spillane co-producing.
A director has yet to be attached as of this writing.
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