Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: Barry Eisler, John Rain

John Rain: Barry Eisler's Assassin Novels Set for Apple TV+ Adapt

Apple TV+, Killer Collective, and See-Saw are developing an adaptation of author Barry Eisler's John Rain assassin novels for television.

Spy thriller novelist Barry Eisler's John Rain books are being adapted for Apple TV+ after the streamer and producer Tom Winchester's company Pure Fiction secured the rights to the New York Times bestsellers. Pure Fiction is now developing the assassin franchise into a TV series. Deadline reported that the deal was brokered by literary agent Laura Rennert, Pure Fiction's Winchester, Apple TV+, as well as lawyer Joel Vanderkloot and See-Saw Films' joint Managing Director Simon Gillis.

Eisler's bestselling thrillers follow ex-CIA operative John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American assassin who specializes in making his kills look like natural causes. Other major characters in the books include Delilah, a conflicted Mossad seductress who is both Rain's lover and his deadliest adversary, and Dox, a wisecracking Texan sniper. The books have been translated into 20 languages. Nine of the novels focus on Rain directly, while the wider 'Killer Collective' universe includes a spinoff series of novels and stories led by characters including sex-crimes detective Livia Lone, closeted black-ops soldier Daniel Larison, and deaf contractor Marvin Manus. These interconnected worlds collide when Eisler's main characters unite to take down a rogue unit that is targeting government whistleblowers in the 2019 novel "The Killer Collective," which confirmed they all lived in the same universe.

An earlier attempt to bring John Rain to TV, with Keanu Reeves, failed to happen. There was also a terrible 2009 Sony movie called Rain Fall (the original title of the first novel "A Clean Kill in Tokyo") that very few people saw, co-starring Gary Oldman. But with a streamer in place this time around and an option that covers 18 novels and four short stories, Apple TV+ might just have a new franchise on its hands after the success of Slow Horses. The series adaptation will be produced by Pure Fiction in association with See-Saw Films, we understand, with Winchester (Shōgun) and Gillis (Slow Horses) both expected to be exec producers alongside Eisler.

"With features like F1 The Movie and shows like Dark Matter and The Studio, Apple's quality and range has become the best in the business," Eisler said. "And as Slow Horses has proven over the course of four glorious seasons so far, Apple's executives have a particular feel for the dangers, intricacies, and absurdities of espionage. Add Tom Winchester and Simon Gillis — veterans of Shōgun and Slow Horses — and you have all the makings of a dream team for a show about a contract killer living in the Tokyo demimonde."

"This was an exceptionally competitive process," said literary agent Laura Rennert. "There were numerous impressive parties vying not just for the rights to John Rain, but for the rights to Barry's other series, too. But in the end, the opportunity to work with Apple, Pure Fiction, and See-Saw was indisputable. They all recognize the promise not just of a fantastic Rain show, but of building out and connecting all Barry's thrillers into a Killer Collective Universe."

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