The project reunites director Michaël Roskam and writer Dennis Lehane, who previously teamed on 2014’s The Drop starring Tom Hardy.
Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser are set to star in Apple’s serial killer series In With the Devil, which Michaël Roskam (Bullhead) will direct from a script by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River). Roskam and Lehane previously teamed on the 2014 movie The Drop starring Tom Hardy.
Deadline reports that the six-episode limited series will be based on James Keene and Hillel Levin‘s 2010 book In With The Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption, which told the story of how Keene was offered early release from prison in exchange for coaxing a confession out of a fellow inmate who was a suspected serial killer.
The show will examine the intimate relationship between these two prisoners, as well as the lengths that people will go to in order to seek redemption, and whether true absolution is ever really possible. Egerton will play Keene, while Hauser is in talks to play the suspected killer.
Keene grew up the son of a Chicago cop and was reportedly poised for a pro football career when he found himself in trouble with the law, and facing roughly a decade in prison without any possibility of parole. The prosecutor offered him a unique deal, as he’d also convicted a man named Larry Hall for abducting and killing a teenage girl, and he was worried about Hall’s appeal. Hall was suspected of killing nearly 20 other women, so rather than risk having Hall roam the streets again as a free man, the prosecutor promised he’d have Keene’s sentence commuted if he could get befriend Hall in prison and get him to confess to other murders.
Imperative Entertainment’s Bradley Thomas, Dan Friedkin and Ryan Friedkin will executive produce alongside Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert of Emjag Productions, Richard Plepler of Eden Productions, and former HBO exec Kary Antholis, as well as Egerton, Roskam, Lehane and Keene. Apple Studios will produce the adaptation of Keene’s gripping memoir, which is expected to shoot in New Orleans.
In With the Devil was originally optioned a decade ago by Brad Pitt‘s company Plan B before Imperative Entertainment got ahold of the book and set up the property at HBO, where Plepler was calling the shots. The project shook loose once Plepler left and started his own production company, ultimately coming aboard as an executive producer along with Antholis, who was the president of HBO’s miniseries division.
Egerton is best known for starring the Kingsman movies, though he also won a Golden Globe last year for his spirited turn as Elton John in Rocketman. Meanwhile, Hauser is best known for his starring role in Clint Eastwood‘s Richard Jewell, as well as strong supporting turns in I, Tonya and BlacKkKlansman. He’ll soon be seen alongside Emma Stone in Cruella, while Egerton is set to star in Apple’s original movie Tetris from producer Matthew Vaughn. Not only is this Egerton’s second Apple project, but Imperative is also behind the streamer’s big-budget adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, the latter of whom is busier than ever at age 77.
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