At the New York Comic Con this weekend, TNT released a short teaser clip of their new upcoming series Snowpiercer, an adaptation of Bong Joon-Ho’s 2013 film of the same name. The original film was based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette, and the new animated teaser draws inspiration from the graphic novel.
This is some of the first news on the Snowpiercer series since the show’s production was announced by TNT back in 2016. Since then, according to IndieWire, “the series has gone through two showrunners, two directors, and now two network changes.” After many delays, the series is finally confirmed to air on TNT in Spring 2020. In that same IndieWire article, TNT, TBT, and TruTV President Kevin Reilly commented, “We’ve had the unique opportunity to more thoroughly test and explore where this show will best perform… we’re confident it will perform strongest on TNT.”
The announcement at the New York Comic Con seemed to confirm that the new series would be following a similar plotline to the original Snowpiercer film. The show centers around the last remaining humans after apocalyptic climate change as they perpetually travel the world inside a 1001 car train. Much like the film and the graphic novel, the series will deal with themes of class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival. The teaser itself also draws heavy inspiration from the graphic novel. The majority of the teaser is animated in the same style as the illustrations of the graphic novel, with only a brief clip of the live-action scenes from the series towards the end.
Bong Joon-Ho of the 2013 Snowpiercer will be producing the new series alongside executive producers Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements and showrunner Graeme Manson. The creative team for the series also includes director James Hawes; Matthew O’Connor; Scott Derrickson, and the original film’s producers Miky Lee, Tae-sung Jeong, Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae-hun and Dooho Choi. The series is set to premiere in spring, though the exact date has not yet been announced. You can watch the teaser clip below.