Skydance has acquired the rights to Mickey Spillane's and Max Allan Collins's Mike Hammer franchise "with plans to develop and produce the bestselling book series as a feature film based on the iconic character," Deadline reported. No writers, directors or actors are attached yet.
Hammer is the protagonist of a series of hardboiled detective novels, starting with I, the Jury (1947). "With more than 250 million copies of Mike Hammer books sold globally, it is often recognized as the most popular American mystery/thriller series of all time," Deadline noted. "Hammer is credited with inspiring numerous other characters including Dirty Harry, Jack Reacher and James Bond (who Ian Fleming famously referred to as 'the British answer to Mike Hammer')."
The producers have the rights to the Hammer catalogue, which includes dozens of stories, books and graphic novels written by Mickey Spillane as well as those co-authored by Spillane and Collins, who wrote Road to Perdition.
Kiss Me Deadly was adapted into a 1955 film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Ralph Meeker as Hammer. In 1999, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.