A&E is giving audiences more of what they want: Sean Bean. Though it’s somewhat unlikely the actor will be reprising his Eddard role on Game of Thrones as fans are hoping, audiences will be able to catch Bean in The Frankenstein Chronicles, set to air as part of A&E’s 2016 slate.
The show is a six-episode British series created and directed by Benjamin Ross, best known for writing and directing The Young Poisoners Handbook. Rainmark Film created the show for UK network ITV, and A&E picked up the U.S. distribution rights during this week’s MIPCOM, a global entertainment trade and distribution event held annually in Cannes.
The series is a crime/horror story set in 1827 in London, where what appears to be the body of a child turns out to be a Frankenstein-like reassembly of body parts. Bean plays Inspector John Marlott, recruited from the Thames River Police to a national security post by Home Secretary Robert Peel. Marlott is described: “With a formidable reputation as an investigator, he is known as a man who doesn’t know the meaning of fear, so it comes as no surprise when coldly efficient Peel, summons him insisting the ‘details of your investigation must remain confidential.’ And after what he’s witnessed Marlott accepts the challenge to track the perpetrator of this heinous crime.”
Director Benjamin Ross said the investigation takes Marlott into London’s seedy underground of prostitution, drug smuggling, bodysnatching and murder. And because we’re dealing with the iconic Frankenstein story, more sinister forces are also at work.
Anna Maxwell Martin (Philomena), Charlie Creed-Miles (Peaky Blinders), and Vanessa Kirby (Everest, Jupiter Ascending) co-star.
Bean is well-known for the many roles which have killed off his character on-screen. (As I write this I’m wearing a t-shirt reading #DontKillSeanBean, a Legends promotion from 2014’s Comic-Con.) To date he’s died in 25 roles, though this handy Nerdist chart points out that he’s not the most-accident prone actor ever: Bela Lugosi died 36 times, Vincent Price 33, and John Hurt hit the dirt 43 times on screen. Bean is still working tirelessly however, so he may catch up. Here’s hoping, for the sake of fans, he’ll be able to make it at least six episodes against a modern-day Frankenstein.
Funny or Die parodied Bean’s bad luck here:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/76e05c074e/tnt-legends?_cc=__d___&_ccid=2tcf80.nvvdk9