USA Network today announced a pilot pick-up for the hour-long scripted “Shooter” television series and has locked in Ryan Phillippe (“Secrets and Lies”) to star. “Shooter” is based on the best-selling Bob Lee Swagger novel by Stephen Hunter, Point of Impact, and the 2007 Paramount film starring Mark Wahlberg.
The co-production with Paramount Television and Universal Cable Productions comes from executive producers Wahlberg (“Boardwalk Empire,” “Entourage”) of Closest to the Hole Productions; Stephen Levinson (“Boardwalk Empire,” “Ballers”) of Leverage Entertainment; and Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, “The Real O’Neals”). John Hlavin (“The Shield”) wrote the pilot and will also executive produce. Simon Cellan Jones (“Ballers”) is set to direct the pilot.
Phillippe is a producer on the project and will star as Bob Lee Swagger, an off-the-grid former Marine sniper who is coaxed into action to thwart the killing of the President. Ultimately double-crossed and framed for the attempt, he must call upon all the skills he acquired as a decorated Marine sharpshooter to avoid capture while hunting down and exposing the traitors who set him up.
“Shooter” is an action series whose central elements are the ingenuity and courage of a U.S. veteran and the military training and background that sustain him as he fights a sophisticated conspiracy.
