Apple Studios pays almost seven figures for rights to upcoming novel, ‘Sheepdogs’
Apple Studios has paid almost seven figures for the Elliot Ackerman novel “Sheepdogs” for Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman to develop into a series, according to Deadline. The book will be published summer of 2025 by Alfred K. Knopf/Penguin Random House.
Hanks and Goetzman’s Playtone are coming off the acclaimed WWII series “Masters of the Air,” and they are gearing up for a sequel to “Greyhound,” with Hanks once again starring in the script he’s written and Aaron Schneider directing, according to Deadline. The first film was based on “The Good Shepherd” by C.S. Forester.
Here’s the plot of “Sheepdogs”: Skwerl and Cheese are down on their luck. Skwerl, who is resourceful like a squirrel (Marines win battles, not spelling bees), used to work for the CIA’s elite paramilitary wing. He was fired after a raid went bad in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz, a legendary pilot—his country’s Maverick—is equally hard up. The fall of Kabul has left him working the nightshift at a gas station. Skwerl recruits Cheese into an anonymous network of so-called sheepdogs, who operate in the shadowy space between predator and prey.
Their mission, which Skwerl convinces a reluctant Cheese to accept, is to repossess a private jet stranded on a remote African airfield. Their fee: a commission on the jet’s $5 million value. But nothing about the job adds up. Their contact goes missing. Their handler is as mysterious as the real source of the money. And when the women in their lives get involved—one pregnant wife and one dominatrix—the stakes skyrocket.
From the jungles of Kampala to a glamorous hotel in Marseille, from a veteran-run pizzeria in Kyiv to a Panera in northern Virginia, Skwerl and Cheese and the players around them navigate an increasingly tangled set of loyalties. They join forces with an eccentric bomb technician turned off-the-grid survivalist, a lapsed Amish adventurer, a used car dealer elected to Congress, even a case officer known as the White Russian. Globe-trotting and page-turning, full of heart and humor, Sheepdogs is a uniquely perceptive, wild ride through the underbelly of modern war and intelligence.
I hope you’ll help support Apple World Today by becoming a patron. Patreon pricing ranges from $2 to $10 a month. Thanks in advance for your support.
The post Apple Studios pays almost seven figures for rights to upcoming novel, ‘Sheepdogs’ appeared first on MacTech.com.
