Published in 1971, Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling political thriller The Day of the Jackal centers on a nameless assassin who’s tasked with killing French president Charles De Gaulle by a far-right terrorist organization. The film adaptation, which was released in 1973, follows the same story but Sky’s new take on the source material modernizes the plot, bringing it into the 21st Century and giving ‘The Jackal’ an entirely different target.
That’s not the only way in which it differs from the novel, however. As Eddie Redmayne is quick to point out when GamesRadar+ chats with him about the show, his hitman is much more of a showman than in previous iterations: Edward Fox played him in the ’70s, while Bruce Willis took a stab at him in The Jackal (1997).
There’s also the matter of it being a 10-part series rather than a movie. As we spend more time with ‘The Jackal’, who goes by ‘Charles’ in the show, we get to know him more than existing screen versions of the story have, see the life he’s set up for himself with his wife Nuria (Úrsula Corberó) in Spain, which lends itself to him being less of a straight-up antagonist.
“One of the things I think is interesting is that in the book and in the original movie, that sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, felt much more concrete,” Redmayne tells us. “It felt to me that The Jackal was the baddie, but he was a charismatic baddie and De Gaulle was the goodie.
“What [writer/producer] Ronan Bennett’s done is updated it to a world of ambiguities. Over 10 hours, I feel like virtually all of the protagonists in this piece are doing extraordinary things but also deeply morally dubious things. I like that Ronan’s world has gone from the binary to this kind of blurry, more of a spectrum [approach].”
That said, Forsyth’s book is around 350-380 pages in most editions, which would mean the average reader would likely spend longer than 10 hours with these characters. “I thought Lebel [the French detective after the titular marksman] was the hero. Jackal was the villain,” the author previously told The Telegraph. “I was very surprised when readers said they loved him. He was the ruddy killer. I had expected women to hate him. But no, he had a lot of female admirers.”
Lebel doesn’t feature in the reboot, instead, Marvel star Lashana Lynch plays the one hot on Charles’ heels: Bianca, a firearms expert working for the MI6. It was The Jackal’s previous job – and the bespoke gun she’s convinced he used to do it – that caught her attention. Will she manage to catch up to him before he strikes again?
The Day of the Jackal premieres on Peacock in the US and Sky Atlantic/NOW in the UK on November 7. For more, check out our picks of the best new TV shows heading our way.