Utopia is an upcoming conspiracy theory series for Amazon Prime and the first trailer, released during the Comic-Con online convention, shows it will be slightly different from the British original version.
The eight-episode remake from Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn was in production for so long. Utopia moved to Amazon Prime after failing to get the desired budget from the prime cable network HBO.
The streaming platform finally unveiled the first trailer to the conspiracy drama. Dan Byrd, Ashleigh LaThrop, Jessica Rothe, Desmin Borges, Javon Walton, and Jessica Hyde star as a group of young, obsessed comic fans of the fictional comic series Utopia. They get together online regularly to uncover hidden meanings in the comics until they realize that the clues predict a grave danger against humanity in the real world.
Appealing to American viewers
Flynn said during the Utopia Comic-Con panel that she changed some of the aspects of the series, which first ran on British television from 2013 to 2014, for the American audience. The writer said that she loves the original version created by Dennis Kelly, but she added elements in the Amazon Prime show that will be “resonant to Americans in a lot of ways.”
The British version is also an adaptation of the graphic novels, and Flynn said that it translated as a poppy and beautiful show. The U.S. version, on the other hand, will be gritty, dirty, and nasty, as well as very realistic.
“I wanted that paranoia to feel very real and to be able to access that through each different character,” Flynn said.
John Cusack’s first TV show
Also featured in Utopia are longtime actors like Rainn Wilson and John Cusack as Dr. Michael Stearns and Dr. Kevin Christie. This is Cusack’s first foray in television after doing movies since the 1980s.
Cusack said that he became interested in joining Utopia after reading the script and learning that it will be shot in Chicago, his hometown.
“It was such amazing writing and great characters and truly a world and a take that I hadn’t seen before,” Cusack said during the Comic-Con panel. “Really ambitious, really audacious, sophisticated, crude, shocking, funny as hell. I was all in as soon as I read the scripts.”
Incidentally, Utopia will also touch on a viral pandemic very similar to what’s going on today. Cusack said that his character would be familiar to people and maybe identifiable to viewers.
Dr. Christie is the CEO of a large biotech company that wants to create a better world. Cusack said that his character is not the typical billionaire as Dr. Christie is quite woke about the problems facing the world.
Utopia will be dropping on Amazon Prime Video in the fall.
Image used courtesy of Amazon Prime Video/YouTube