SOUTHERN BASTARDS pilot ordered by Hulu

Image Comics has confirmed a pilot based on Southern Bastards has been ordered by Hulu. The TV version is being created by Bill Dubuque (Ozark, The Accountant) with Nia DaCosta (The Marvels, Hedda), who’ll direct the pilot too, and have Matt Olmstead (Chicago P.D.) serve as showrunner. Ryan Coogler‘s Proximity Media is among the companies producing the project as well, while the comic’s creators, Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, will be credited as executive producers.

Launched in 2014, Southern Bastards is an Eisner Award-winning crime series set in the fictional Craw County, Alabama, where the ruthless high school football coach/crime lord Euless Boss is king. The TV version will follow a military veteran searching for her estranged father in the town, apparently taking its cue from the fourth arc of the comic from 2017. The book ended with issue #20 the following year, after a planned final arc never transpired following the numerous sexual allegations about Latour in 2020.

This won’t be the first time a TV show based on a comic was produced after one of its creators was heavily accused of sexual misconduct, following DMZ, the 2022 HBO Max miniseries based on the book by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. For that series, co-director and executive producer Ava DuVernay noticeably took the step of bringing on one of Wood’s accusers, Laura Hudson, onto the writing team, presumably earning her some of the royalties, but whether a similar decision will be made for Southern Bastards remains to be seen. Similarly, the pilot might not go to series, much like how the WGN America version of another Aaron comic, Scalped, failed to move forward in 2017.

Still, for many, the news might simply sadly echo what an unnamed executive recently told Variety about the #MeToo movement in Hollywood, following the reelection of Donald Trump. They told the trade paper, “In this climate, you’d get in more trouble for saying something bad about Donald Trump on the air.” They shared those comments following a lengthy Air Mail exposé about alleged sexual misconduct by Jared Leto, which thus far hasn’t moved the needle on his upcoming projects, including next year’s Masters of the Universe reboot.

In the meantime, DaCosta’s latest film, Hedda, is out now in select theaters and on Prime Video, while her next, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, will be released on January 16. Aaron recently wrapped up his 12-issue TMNT run, and is continuing to write Absolute Superman for DC, Bug Wars at Image, Dynamite’s upcoming Thundarr the Barbarian reboot (starting January 21), and Uncle Scrooge: Earth’s Mightiest Duck (which’ll conclude with issue #4 on November 26) for Marvel. Latour continues to be “on leave” from mainstream comics work.