Exclusive: In a strong year-end book deal, Apple Studios has paid seven figures for the Elliot Ackerman novel Sheepdogs for Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman to develop as a series. The book will be published summer 2025 by Alfred K. Knopf/Penguin Random House. Eleven bidders were in the mix.
Ackerman is a former Marine Corps special operations team leader whose books include Halcyon, Green on Blue and Waiting for Eden. He also co-wrote 2034 and sequel 2054 with Admiral James Stavridis.
Sheepdogs revolves around Skwerl and Cheese, two elite paramilitary soldiers down on their luck. Skwerl is an ex-Marine who used to work for the CIA’s elite paramilitary wing but was fired after a raid went bad in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz is a legendary pilot, but the fall of Kabul has left him working the nightshift at a gas station. Skwerl recruits Cheese into an anonymous network of so-called sheepdogs,…
