Prime Video’s Reacher is currently three seasons deep with a fourth season on the way, but Alan Ritchson’s uncompromising anti-hero might have a new rival on the small screen. Robert Enright’s bestselling Sam Pope novels are officially getting turned into a TV series after Avatar Entertainment acquired the rights to the literary saga, which comprises 15 mainline books, with a 16th entry, titled Night One, expected to hit shelves in 2026. The thrilling action series is often described as the British version of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher due to the two long-running franchises sharing some DNA, making the Sam Pope stories ripe for a TV adaptation.
The Sam Pope novels center around a military-trained ex-sniper who decides to take the law into his own hands by waging a one-man war on organized crime and corruption. His self-initiated crusade sees him face off against gangsters, hitmen, traffickers, and international terrorists (to name but a few), as he attempts to bring criminals to justice that the system has failed to apprehend and hold accountable. The first book in the gripping saga, The Night Shift, was released in 2018, but the world has expanded with many more stories since, including the likes of The Takers, Man of My Word, No Way Back, Out of Reach, and Public Enemy.
According to Deadline, Avatar Entertainment founder Larry Robinson is executive producing the project, which he believes is poised to be the next big action hit. In a statement alongside the announcement that his company had acquired the rights, he said: “I am excited to work with Robert Enright to adapt this fantastic Sam Pope collection into a super-premium action-thriller TV series for action fans around the world.”
Will ‘Sam Pope’ Be Able to Compete With ‘Reacher’?
More to come…
- Release Date
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February 3, 2022
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Nick Santora
- Directors
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Omar Madha, Carol Banker, Julian Holmes, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett, Norberto Barba, Stephen Surjik, Thomas Vincent
- Writers
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Cait Duffy