HBO Should ABSOLUTELY Develop ‘100 Bullets’ for TV

100 Bullets is an Eisner and Harvey Award-winning pulp Noir comic book created by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, which also happens to be one of my favorite comic books. The series ends its decade-long run this month with its 100th issue (fitting), and as talk of the futures of Azzarello and Risso has commenced, there’s been a little bit of hint-hinting that 100 Bullets could be adapted for Tv, possibly as an HBO series.

Well, in response to this rumor, I’d like to say: HBO, if you’re hearing this, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE develop 100 Bullets as a series (if you’re not already, of course)!

Here’s is the “subtle hint” that Brian Azzarello dropped during an interview with MTV Splash Page recently, after he was asked what other forms of media 100 Bullets might branch into:

Television — there’s an idea!…That’s all I’ll say. Television… or maybe something that’s ‘not just TV.’

Ok, so that’s not a confirmation of any kind – and really it could’ve just been an impromptu pitch to HBO (whose slogan is, of course, “It’s not TV…It’s HBO”). Still, Azzarello’s words are enough insinuation for me to start cheerleading for this non-situation to become a reality. HBO and 100 Bullets would be a match made in heaven, far as I’m concerned.

For those who aren’t familiar with 100 Bullets: the DC/Vertigo comic started back in 1999 as a series of (seemingly) loosely connected stories about a mysterious “agent” named Graves, who would visit (seemingly) random individuals and bestow them with the gift of an attache case that contained a gun and 100 bullets of “untraceable ammunition.” Each individual Graves visited was supposedly the victim of some great injustice, and (whether they knew it or not) each of them had just cause for revenge. Along with the gun and bullets, Agent Graves also provided proof of the injustice done, along with the assurance that any retaliation would be consequence-free, forcing the wronged person to grapple with the choice of exacting  vengeance or not.

That initial storyline was interesting enough, but over the course of a decade, Azzarello and Risso slowly unfolded a more intricate mystery involving secret societies, secret agents, secret pasts and enough mythos to rival Lost. By end of the series (the last issue hits comic book stores on July 11th), seemingly random people were revealed to be chess pieces in a centuries-old war and the stakes had ballooned from individual moral quandaries to the fate of the world. The series was fresh, original, violent, gritty, engaging, and hands-down the best urban crime drama I’ve ever read in comics.

And what is HBO known for? Why fresh, original, violent, gritty, engaging programming of course! What better home for a tv adaptation of 100 Bullets?

Seriously: HBO needs another acclaimed crime drama a la The Sopranos or The Wire right about now, and 100 Bullets is a series that would grab viewers by the cojones and keep them coming back each week for at least three to four season(s if not more), trying to unravel the mystery. Matter fact, now that I think about it, there really is no good reason why HBO shouldn’t be developing 100 Bullets as a series.

So there you have it: Kofi Outlaw loves 100 Bullets and would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see it end up on HBO. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment. If you too would like to see 100 Bullets premiering on your Home Box Office station, let us know in the comments.

Source: MTV Splash Page & The Playlist