Shane Black will bring a different type of lethal weapon to the screen in the form of Mack Bolan, the pulp antihero who inspired The Punisher.
Writer and director Shane Black sure loves his pulp paperbacks. His bet two films as director, 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and 2016’s The Nice Guys, are deeply indebted to the sort of two-fisted detective stories that used to populate the spinner racks, and his latest, Prime Video’s Play Dirty, is a loose adaptation of Richard Stark’s superb Parker novels. And that’s before you look at the screenwriting work that first put him on the map in the 80s and 90s – Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Which is a long way of saying he’s a pretty good pick to adapt The Executioner, the long-running, insanely violent, and pretty sleazy, tbh, series of men’s adventure novels created by Don Pendleton in 1969. And that’s exactly what he’s doing, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Black will write the script with regular sparring partners Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry and although he’s not locked in to direct, it seems a strong likelihood. The project also sees Black reteaming with legendary action producer Joel Silver once again.
The Executioner books follow the incredibly bloody exploits of Mack Bolan, Vietnam veteran turned implacable vigilante after his family dies due to the machinations of the Mafia. From 1969 to 2020, Bolan waged a brutal campaign against mobsters, commies, terrorists, and other assorted bugbears through a staggering 464 novels, plus about that many again spin off books and adjacent series. Pendleton, perhaps wisely, sold the rights in 1980, with a succession of amazingly productive ghostwriters taking up the reins in his stead.
They’re a rough read, to be frank – “lurid” might be the most polite term. But if Bolan’s modus operandi sounds familiar, that’s because his adventures directly inspired Marvel Comics antihero and imminent Spider-Man co-star The Punisher.
As reported in CBR, Punisher creator Gerry Conway said of the skull-clad killer’s origin, “I was fascinated by the Don Pendelton Executioner character, which was fairly popular at the time, and I wanted to do something that was inspired by that, although not to my mind a copy of it. And while I was doing the Jackal storyline, the opportunity came for a character who would be used by the Jackal to make Spider-Man’s life miserable. The Punisher seemed to fit.”
So, now you know.
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