The future has never looked bleaker than in the new trailer for the upcoming Amazon Prime Original Series Utopia. Starring John Cusack (High Fidelity) Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Sasha Lane (American Honey) the trailer transports viewers into a strange yet familiar world. Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) serves as executive producer and writer. The eight part series will be released on September 25th according to Entertainment Weekly.
A new nightmare awakens with Utopia, a series Flynn adapted from the 2013 British show examining a dystopian world filled with illusions. As a writer who has always been one to take a walk on the dark side, Flynn wanted to have running theme of paranoia throughout the series. She discussed the writing process with Entertainment Weekly: “I wanted mine to play bumpy, dirty, raw, real–like you’re walking on the gum on the sidewalk and smelling the garbage in the alley.” Flynn is a bestselling author whose books about murder and complicated heroines have been adapted into films such as Gone Girl and HBO’s limited television series Sharp Objects.
Utopia follows a world not unlike our own with a viral pandemic emerging alongside the paranoia of who to trust in a growing digital age. A group of nerdy ragtag misfits including Rainn Wilson as virus specialist Dr. Michael Stearns become unlikely heroes. They are convinced that a new comic book Utopia reveals cryptic messages about hazards to come, threatening life as they know it. The problem with this discovery? Everyone who reads Utopia dies. Causing a series of events including danger and conspiracies, the inexperienced group seeks answers as they go on a perilous expedition to save the human race.
One of the many battles they’re up against is a strain of evil spread via tech mogul Dr. Kevin Christie, portrayed by John Cusack. A rich man linked to the outbreak of a manmade virus, art imitates life as they deal with a nationwide pandemic. Dr. Christie is one of the many changes Flynn has made to the new series as he was not in the original British version. Sasha Lane also stars portraying the real life version of Utopia’s comic book hero Jessica Hyde as she helps the inexperienced heroes on their bloody road to victory. Jessica is described as being wild with Lane being Fylnn’s ideal choice to portray the ferocious protagonist.
Watch the trailer below: