Apple Sheepdogs Novel TV Series Deal Playtone Tom Hanks Gary Goetzman

EXCLUSIVE: As part of a strong year-end book deal, Apple Studios paid a seven-figure sum for Elliot Ackerman’s novel German Shepherds for Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman to develop a series. The book will be published in summer 2025 by Alfred K. Knopf/Penguin Random House. Eleven bidders were involved.

Ackerman is a former Marine Corps special operations team leader whose books include: Halcyon, Green on Blue and Waiting for Eden. He was also a co-author 2034 and sequel 2054 with Admiral James Stavridis.

German Shepherds revolves around Skwerl and Cheese, two elite paramilitary soldiers who are down on their luck. Skwerl is a former Marine who once worked for the CIA’s elite paramilitary wing but was fired after a botched raid in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz is a legendary pilot, but after the fall of Kabul he has to work the night shift at a gas station. Skwerl recruits Cheese to an anonymous network of so-called German Shepherds who operate in the shadowy space between predator and prey. Their mission, which Skwerl convinces a hesitant Cheese to accept, is to recapture a private jet stranded at a remote African airfield. Her fee: a commission on the jet’s value of $5 million. But there’s nothing wrong with the job. Your contact disappears. Her handler is as mysterious as the true source of the money. And when the women in her life get involved – a pregnant woman and a dominatrix – the stakes skyrocket.

When things go wrong, they team up with an eccentric off-the-grid bomb technician, a survivalist, a deceased Amish adventurer, a used car salesman elected to Congress, and a clerk known as the “White Russian.” Together they take a wild ride through the dark side of modern war and intelligence, hopefully on the way to redemption.

Hanks and Goetzman’s Playtone is part of the acclaimed WWII series Master of the airand they are preparing for a sequel Greyhoundwith Hanks once again starring in the script he wrote and Aaron Schneider directing. The first film was based on The good shepherd by CS Forester.

CAA brokered the deal for PJ Mark at Janklow & Nesbit.