More crimes are coming to Prime Video. In January, the streamer ordered up a series based on the Eisner Award-winning comic series Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Brubaker is co-showrunning the series alongside author Jordan Harper (Everybody Knows).
And now the series has a pair of directors with their own comic-book adaptation history. Deadline reports that Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the co-directors (and co-writers) of Captain Marvel (pictured above), will direct the first four episodes of the show. The pair are among that interesting list of directors who made their name with a lauded indie (in this case, Half Nelson) and went on to direct a mega-franchise film. Since Captain Marvel, they’ve directed films and TV, including episodes of Mrs. America and Masters of the Air.
In 2019, Brubaker told Deadline, “Criminal tells the interweaving saga of several generations of families tied together by the crimes and murders of the past.” The series began in 2006; the first ten issues told one story about a pickpocket and a heist (collected as Criminal Vol. 1: Coward) and one about a soldier investigating his brother’s murder (Criminal Vol. 2: Lawless).
Almost ten years ago, Jake Hinkson argued that Criminal is “the crime epic we really need,” writing:
Here’s a series that’s about as gritty as any ever made—if made into a faithful film it would be a hard R—but it has an emotional resonance that’s lacking in the superhuman antiheroics of Sin City. In the Criminal universe, everyone is all too human.
Looks like he’s going to get his wish—though it remains to be seen how gritty the adaptation is. Criminal is apparently in preproduction in Portland. The cast has yet to be announced.
