DirecTV and AT&T's Audience Network has given a 10-episode straight to series order to an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Mr. Mercedes. The drama will premiere on the network in 2017.
Emmy winner Brendan Gleeson (Into the Storm) and Anton Yelchin have been tapped to star in the drama series.
Mr. Mercedes centers on a demented killer who taunts a retired police detective with a series of lurid letters and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he can strike again. Gleeson will play Detective Kermit Hodges, a retired cop who is driven out of retirement after an old nemesis reappears. Yelchin will play Brady Hartsfield, a mentally deranged ice cream truck driver and IT worker for Cyber Patrol who is secretly the Mercedes killer.
David E. Kelley (Boston Legal, The Practice) and Jack Bender (Lost, Under the Dome) are shepherded the series adaptation. Both will serve as executive producers, with Kelly writing the first episode and Bender set to direct. Additional executive producers include Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Christopher Long, Bart Peters, Jenna Glazier and Tom Patricia. Sonar Entertainment and Temple Hill Entertainment will produce.
