problem is (for me), 47 isn’t really a character, he’s a cipher. whenever anyone treats him as a character, rather than a force of nature, they dilute him. he shouldn’t really have a character arc or a personality because that isn’t what’s satisfying about him. the minute you do that, you undermine the mystery. equally, a movie where the main character isn’t somehow changed by the events is generally unsatisfactory.
in blood money, i always saw him as a lynchian idea of death. no one ever really sees him. he gives a little push here, a snapped chandelier there, then walks out without anyone even looking at him.
the real characters in the game are the people he whacks, but i don’t know if that would translate all that well into a movie. who wants to see a hitman film with hardly any hitman? a tv series though, might work…
(i’m not hijacking your thread, just popping an idea down. hopefully, it’ll help?)
treat it like a reverse columbo; a ‘howhedunnit’ rather than a ‘whodunnit’.
47 recieves his target at the beginning, but the rest of the episode follows a story involving the target rather than 47.
we see their lives, the people in it, why they deserve or don’t deserve to be whacked etc. you could have all sorts of genres for the story (barring the really obviously unrealistic ones). the thing is, the target is always in a position that’d be difficult for them to get whacked, so we’re always thinking “how’s 47 going to do it?”
then, right at a point you aren’t expecting, the hit happens and the target is dead. very quick, very sudden. you could really play with expectations. we’d also get to see the fallout of each hit.
afterwards a cop, one of the few who kind of knows who 47 is and has been hunting him, turns up. in a classic ‘whodunnit’-style denouement (with flashbacks) we are shown how 47 pulled it off and escaped. no one believes him, of course.
next episode.
if you were to watch the episode again, you would see 47 in disguise or in the background setting up the hit. clever little hints, nothing intrusive. as the series progresses, we’d be looking out for these on the first watch through.
