EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is developing a feature adaptation of Cold Zero, the forthcoming action thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor, Deadline has learned.
True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto is set to adapt the screenplay, with Peter Berg (Lone Survivor, Patriots Day) producing for Film 44 alongside Ezra Emanuel. Exec producers on the project include Thor and Elizabeth Rogers. Sources said Netflix execs were blown away by the book and were able to secure it thanks to their creative partnership with Berg and his Film 44, which recently reupped its longtime first-look deal with Netflix.
Slated for publication on February 10, Cold Zero watches as a cutting-edge commercial airliner crash-lands near the North Pole, stranding survivors in one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Unbeknownst to most aboard, the plane was secretly transporting a revolutionary, highly classified technology capable of reshaping global power, and its disappearance sparks a frantic, high-stakes race among the world’s major powers to recover it.
Best known for creating HBO’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning crime anthology True Detective, which is heading into its fifth season, Pizzolatto most recently teamed with Skydance Sports to set up a mystery series to star Matthew McConaughey and Cole Hauser at Netflix, in a bidding war. Recently, he also wrote, directed and produced the forthcoming drama Easy’s Waltz, starring Vince Vaughn, Al Pacino, Kate Mara, Simon Rex and more, which premiered at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival. He is repped by WME, Anonymous Content, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
Berg is the multiple Emmy nominee behind series such as Friday Night Lights, The Leftovers, Ballers, Painkiller, and American Primeval, which recently racked up four weeks on the Netflix Global Top 10 TV (English). He’s also responsible for lauded films as Patriots Day, Deepwater Horizon, and Lone Survivor. Berg most recently wrapped on The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II, a historical drama for Netflix starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Galitzine, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis that’s expected to be released this year. He reupped Film 44’s deal with Netflix last April and is also currently working with Taylor Sheridan to develop a Call of Duty movie for Paramount and Activision. Also an EP on a forthcoming Friday Night Lights reboot for Peacock, he is repped by WME and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum.
Other works from Thor include The Lions of Lucerne, The First Commandment, and The Last Patriot, to name just a few. He is repped by Heide Lange of SGA, WME, and attorney Scott E. Schwimer.
