Jason Bateman will direct the first two episodes of the MRC drama and executive produce through his production company Aggregate Films.

Stephen King's most recent novel, The Outsider, is getting the HBO treatment.

The network has ordered to series an adaptation of the 2018 best-seller starring Rogue One's Ben Mendelsohn. Jason Bateman will direct the first two episodes of the drama, which hails from studio Media Rights Capital (MRC is also behind Bateman's Netflix drama Ozark). He also will serve as an executive producer through his company Aggregate Films, which will produce the project alongside Temple Hill Entertainment.

The Outsider centers on a seemingly straightforward investigation into the gruesome murder of a local boy that leads a seasoned cop and an unorthodox investigator to question everything they believe to be real, as an insidious supernatural force edges its way into the case.

In addition to Bateman, executive producers on the project include Jack Bender, Richard Price, Temple Hill's Marty Bowen and Aggregate Films' Michael Costigan. Mendelsohn will produce.

The Outsider joins a roster of original dramas at HBO which also includes Game of Thrones, Westworld, The New Pope, J.J. Abrams' Demimonde, Jordan Peele's Lovecraft Country, True Detective, Sharp Objects, The Deuce and Nicole Kidman-David E. Kelley's limited series The Undoing, among others.

Mendelsohn, for his part, is no stranger to television. He won an Emmy in 2016 for his role on Netflix's Bloodline. But since the show's end, he has been focused on film. In addition to Star Wars spinoff Rogue One, the Australian actor starred opposite Guy Pearce in David Michod's Sundance winner Animal Kingdom.

Mendelsohn currently stars in Robin Hood: Origins and the Nicole Holofcener film The Land of Steady Habits for Netflix, and he just wrapped a role in Joel Edgerton's The King. He can also be seen in the upcoming pic Captain Marvel. The actor's earlier efforts include The Dark Knight Rises, The Place Beyond the Pines and Killing Them Softly.

Mendelsohn is repped by CAA in the U.S. and United Management in Australia; Bateman is with CAA, Lighthouse Management + Media and Hansen Jacobson; Price is repped by UTA; and King is with Paradigm and Gang Tyre.

Valence Media, the parent company of The Hollywood Reporter, also owns Media Rights Capital.