General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Kill Jackie

Kill Jackie is a 2026 eight-episode revenge thriller television series starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as Jackie Price, a former international drug smuggler living as a luxury art dealer who learns that a squad of assassins called The Seven Demons has been hired to kill her, and sets out to eliminate them one by one first. It premiered on October 2, 2026 on AMC+ in the United States, on Prime Video in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and on HBO Max in nine European territories.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Eight-episode revenge thriller; TV-MA rating; episode 1 runs 44 minutes¹^•³
Source	Adapted from the novel The Price You Pay by Nick Harkaway, writing under the pseudonym Aidan Truhen¹
Creators	Co-created by Conor Keane, Tom Butterworth, Peter Lawson, and Damon Thomas; Butterworth is writer and showrunner, Thomas lead director¹
Production	Co-produced by Fremantle and Steel Springs Pictures in collaboration with Deabru Kalea Filmeak¹^•²
Filming	Shot in Bilbao and other locations in Bizkaia, London, and Swansea²
Premiere	October 2, 2026: AMC+ (US), Prime Video (UK and Ireland), HBO Max in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, France, and Belgium¹^•²
Reception	Season 1 scored 50% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (18 reviews) and 86% with audiences⁴

Spoilers

Premise

Jackie Price (Catherine Zeta-Jones) has spent twenty years living a luxurious, anonymous existence, traveling the world and selling fine art, after escaping a dangerous past as an international drug smuggler. Just as her life begins to feel boring, she discovers that The Seven Demons, a squad of hitmen, have been hired to kill her. Assuming someone from her past is behind the contract, she revives her old instincts and hunts the Demons down one by one before they can kill her, but soon finds that her own buried secrets are more dangerous than the killers on her trail.¹

The first episode, "Burning Down The House," opens with an ambush in Jackie's London apartment, after which she flees to Bilbao and begins hunting her pursuers.³^•⁵ Her art business is built on freeports, customs zones where imported goods can be stored without paying duties until they are moved out.⁶

Cast and crew

Zeta-Jones, an Oscar, BAFTA, and Tony Award winner known for Chicago and Wednesday, leads the cast and also serves as an executive producer.¹ The ensemble includes Daniel Ings as Sam, Sidse Babett Knudsen as Karenina, Óscar Jaenada as Zigor, Christine Adams as The Doc, Julian Rhind-Tutt as Friedrich, Raff Law as Sean Harper, Enzo Cilenti, Hattie Hook, Darci Shaw, Julian Barratt, Bill Paterson, and Ron Perlman.¹^•⁷

Directing was split between Damon Thomas (four episodes) and Dawn Shadforth (four episodes).⁸ Tom Butterworth wrote seven of the eight episodes and shares screenwriting credit with Conor Keane, who also served as associate producer; Nick Harkaway is credited as executive consultant on the series.¹^•⁸ The executive producers are Peter Lawson and Jose Agustin Valdes for Steel Springs Pictures, Butterworth, Thomas, Zeta-Jones, Rebecca Dundon, Dante Di Loreto, and Jeffrey Levine.¹

Adaptation from the novel

The series changes the protagonist of The Price You Pay from a man to a woman: in the novel the lead is Jack Price, a cynical, meticulous operator in London's high-end cocaine trade who is still active in the business when events overtake him. In the series, Jackie Price has been retired from international drug trafficking for twenty years, and the threat from The Seven Demons disrupts her hidden past and her quiet life of luxury rather than an ongoing criminal enterprise.⁹

The setting also shifts. The novel concentrates on the British underworld, mainly London, while the series crosses borders, with northern Spain, specifically Bilbao and the province of Bizkaia, as the principal setting alongside London and Swansea.⁹^•² The novel is narrated in the first person and keeps the action almost entirely inside Jack's mind, so the series gives supporting characters such as Sam (Daniel Ings) and Zigor (Óscar Jaenada) richer backstories to sustain an eight-episode drama.⁹

Release

AMC Global Media acquired exclusive United States streaming rights in July 2026, with the premiere slated for the fall.¹⁰ The series premiered on October 2, 2026, with new episodes airing weekly on AMC+ in the US, while Prime Video released all eight episodes at once in the UK and Ireland.¹^•¹¹ HBO Max carries the series in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, France, and Belgium, and a Globoplay release was announced for Brazil.²^•¹¹ The series held a premiere event at the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao on September 29, 2026, attended by Zeta-Jones and several cast members.²

Reception

Critical response was mixed to negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 held a 50% Tomatometer from 18 reviews against an 86% audience score, with the critics consensus citing narrative dissonance and too many clichés.⁴ Lucy Mangan of The Guardian gave it 2 out of 5, calling it "preposterous nonsense" that replaced credible writing with gunfights and car chases.⁴ The Radio Times review called the series "a jumbled collection of other, better shows," and The Daily Beast described it as derivative of Kill Bill, Killing Eve, and John Wick.¹²^•¹³

Reviewers consistently singled out Zeta-Jones's performance. TheWrap wrote that her charisma, and her use of her native Welsh accent on camera for the first time, carried the show through its weaker moments.¹⁴ Decider called the series "a shallow cartoon comic" that nevertheless featured "an engaging Catherine Zeta-Jones," and French critics were divided between outlets accepting its tongue-in-cheek entertainment, such as Télérama, and harsher verdicts from Le Parisien.⁴^•¹⁵ Commentators noted the show's debt to earlier action properties: its title recalls Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films, its choreographed, location-hopping violence resembles Guy Ritchie's films, and its assassin-hunter premise drew comparisons to John Wick, whose producer Peter Lawson is one of the series' co-creators.¹⁶^•⁴

The first season ended with a setup for a second season, which had not been confirmed as of early October 2026; Zeta-Jones said she had "more in me" for the character.¹⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Psychological and domestic thrillers

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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