The real-life story of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher will inspire a limited series from Will Staples (Disney+’s The Right Stuff), Working Title and The New York Times, according to Deadline. Staples is set as the writer of the series.
The story will follow former Navy SEAL chief Gallagher, who found himself at the center of a national courtroom battle in 2018 after being charged with killing a 17-year-old ISIS prisoner and taking photographs of himself with the corpse, according to Deadline. The legal battle surfaced questions surrounding the darker actions of America’s special forces.
Deadline reports that Staples will base the series on the upcoming book Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALs and the New York Times article “Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Chief for War Crimes,” both by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Philipps, who serves as a consulting producer on the project.
Staples has worked on several television shows involving the armed forces, including Amazon’s Jack Ryan and USA’s Shooter. He wrote the screenplay to the upcoming film, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, starring Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther). He is also the writer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 — one of the biggest entertainment releases in history, according to Deadline.
The series is executive produced by Katy Rozelle (Californication), Tim Bevan (Hanna) and Eric Fellner (Tales of the City) for Working Title, joining Staples and Caitlin Roper of The New York Times, according to Deadline.