Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg already have their fourth collaboration, Mile 22, in the can and ready to hit cinemas in August. But before that film has even arrived, they’ve signed on to team up for a fifth time on the crime drama, Wonderland.
This film will be heading straight to Netflix and will be adapted from Robert B. Parker‘s best-selling detective novel series that follow detective Spenser, a hard-boiled private eye in the vein of Philip Marlowe.
The character first appeared in the 1973 novel The Godwulf Manuscript, and has since gone on to appear in almost fifty books, with Parker penning the first 40 until his death in 2010, when Ace Atkins took over.
According to THR, the story for the film adaptation will follow “a man fresh out of prison who is sucked back into Boston’s underbelly while he uncovers the truth a bout a sensational murder”. Sean O’Keefe is penning the screenplay.
The Spenser character has previously been adapted, but this will easily be his highest profile outing. Joe Mantegna played the character in three TV movies on American network A&E from 1999 to 2001, and before that, the books were the inspiration for the ABC TV series, Spenser: For Hire, which ran from 1985-1988.
Netflix will be hoping their adaptation is a big step above the made-for-TV movies of the past. Wahlberg and Berg have plenty of experience together, and although their previous collaborations (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day) are varying degrees of quality, they should at least bring a hard-boiled, authentic edge to this adaptation.
#Peace.Love.Wonderland
