EXCLUSIVE: Hideout Pictures has acquired rights to Kill Whitey Donovan, the upcoming comic book series produced and developed by the 12-Gauge Comics label and published by Dark Horse. Sigrid Gilmer (TNT’s Claws, Netflix’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events) has been attached to adapt the series into an action film.

Hideout, the financing, developing and producing arm of Nashville-based Average Joes Entertainment, will develop and finance the project through its newly created film fund, which provided financing for the upcoming Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. The company’s chief content officer Trevor O’Neil will oversee the new project.

Kill Whitey Donovan, created by writer Sydney Duncan and artist Natalie Barahona and edited by Brian Stelfreeze (Marvel’s Black Panther), is set during the last days of the Civil War and centers on two women who will stop at nothing to get the justice they seek: Anna Hoyt, out to kill the man who caused her sister to commit suicide (her fiancé, Jim ‘Whitey’ Donovan), and Hattie Virgil, a slave on the Donovan plantation who agrees to guide Anna in exchange for her chance at freedom.

The first issue will be released Wednesday.

Gilmer, also a playwright, is a co-producer, writer, and executive story editor on Claws, and also wrote on Lemony Snicket.

“When I first read Kill Whitey Donovan, I was amazed that the story lived up to its provocative title,” O’Neil said. “In Sigrid, we found the perfect screenwriter who can meld incredible action with brilliant dialogue. We’re excited to be working with her on this project.”

Gilmer is repped by Circle of Confusion.