HBO’s long-gestating take on sci-fi chiller Westworld looks like it’s finally ready to hit our screens later this year, with a just-released teaser trailer whetting appetites for what’s to come.
Due to be broadcast in a series of one-hour slots, the TV series is said to be “inspired” by Michael Crichton’s 1973 film of the same name.
Pitched as a drama, Westworld is described as a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin, which features a theme park where characters can live out their deepest, darkest fantasies.
The series has quite a few known names attached including Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, James Marsden, Thandie Newton and Evan Rachel Wood.
J.J. Abrams takes an executive producer credit, alongside Jonathan Nolan (brother of Christopher, and co-writer of the similarly-inclined Interstellar), with his Bad Robot Productions producing the series in assocation with Warner Bros Television.
According to EW, Harris will star as The Man in Black, the so-called distillation of pure villainy into one character, while Marsden reportedly plays Teddy Flood, a mysterious new arrival to a small frontier town who proves to be much more than first meets the eye.
Nolan spoke to EW about the project last year, tantalisingly describing it thus:
People who come into this place are looking for—and this is the irony of it—the authentic experience. They’re looking for not the virtual version, but the real version, the tactile version. Interestingly we’ve arrived at what [the original film] created—fully immersible virtual worlds…. What happens in Westworld stays in Westworld. It’s a place where you can be whoever the f**k you want to be and there are no consequences. No rules, no limitations
Westworld is due to arrive on HBO some time in October.
Check out the teaser for yourself below, and stay tuned to Wicked Horror for more details as they become available.
