A book by Wyoming author C.J. Box will be turned into a television series by ABC, Box has announced.
In an exclusive interview with Cowboy State Daily, C. J. Box said his book “The Highway” will be turned into a series called “The Big Sky.”
Box called “The Highway,” about a long-haul trucker who is a serial killer, the “creepiest thing I ever wrote.”
“(The television series will) be dark and scary,” he said. “A lot of people who have read it say it is one of the creepiest things they’ve ever read. The pilot I read scared me, even though I knew what was going to happen.”
Filming for the series is to begin in March and resume in the summer.
Box is known for his “Joe Pickett” novels about a game warden in Wyoming, but “The Highway” focuses on a private investigator from Montana.
The rights to a number of Box’s books have been purchased for production, he said, but none have resulted in a movie or television series until “The Highway.”
“Actually, (it’s) kind of gotten comfortable, into a groove, where these people in Hollywood give me money and don’t make anything,” he said. “And it’s not so bad.”
Box said he hopes the series leads to increased book sales.
“If there’s a series, it’s great advertising for the book,” he said. “It’s not as lucrative as it used to be in entertainment, because there’s a million TV channels and streaming services. But with this network show, that will get a lot of eyeballs and hopefully some of those people will be interested in reading the book.”
Executive Producer of the upcoming series, David E. Kelley told Variety that “…the series is described as a procedural thriller about private detective Cassie Dewell, who partners with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. But when they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken.”
C.J. Box has been outspoken about luring production companies into Wyoming. Last year, he was disappointed with the Wyoming State Legislature for its failure to pass a bill which would provide incentives for companies to shoot films in Wyoming.
