It’s kind of a miracle Snowpiercer (the show) even exists. Development began five years ago in 2015, not long after director Bong Joon-ho brought the French graphic novel to life on the big screen. Over the next four years, the project was passed back and forth between two networks (TNT and TBS). It was helmed by two separate showrunners who disagreed and even attacked each other on Twitter. And then a pilot was shot by a director who refused to do reshoots after management changed. (For a film about, literally, runaway capitalism, everyone in the biz was just throwing money it.)
Finally, the show landed back on TNT and was given an air date: May 31, 2020. With viewers eager to finally get to see the show, and a whole lot of time on their hands due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that premiere date has now moved once again to the sooner May 17. What a mess.
It also doesn’t help that the series’ source material remains one of the most celebrated art house films of the past decade (and though Netflix doesn’t reveal viewership numbers, Snowpiercer performed smashingly enough for the streaming service to give Bong the reigns for Okja, a Netflix original.)
It still remains to be seen whether all this production mayhem pays off. The show will run 10 episodes. Here’s what we do know so far.
Did Bong Joon-ho Direct Snowpiercer the series?
Though Bong Joon-ho served as executive producer on the series, he wasn’t behind the camera for any as the director. In fact, with the title ‘executive producer,’ it’s hard to know how much a role he played in production. The surviving series showrunner is Graeme Manson, writer on the uneven sci-fi series, Orphan Black.
Will the show be similar to the movie?
Manson has been eager to point out that he’s a fan of both source materials. “It had a long birth,” he said at a TCA event. “It’s a really great property, I’m a huge fan of director Bong’s movie and huge fan of the graphic novels, and it took a long time to get it right and we got it right.”
Manson also made clear that he was covering many bases that the movie covered, while still keeping within the same spirit. “I wanted to create a character drama, and wanted (us) to get to know the classes in all the episodes,” he said.
Who’s in Snowpiercer‘s cast?
Top billed for the series are Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Daveed Diggs (Hamilton), playing roles similar to those made famous by Tilda Swinton and Chris Evans in the film.
Diggs wanted to make clear that fans should not be worried by the various delays in Snowpiercer‘s production.“It takes a long time to make really good sh*t,” he said at the same TCA event.
IMDB
What’s the plot?
As in the film, humanity remains buried beneath snow and the survivors circumnavigate the frozen globe on a perpetually-moving train. While Bong’s film takes place more than 15 years after the near-extinction event, it appears the TV show will pick up much closer to Armageddon. The main events, therefore, might be those alluded to in the film: the early attempt at an uprising that failed, prompting the journey of Chris Evans’ character, Curtis. If that’s the case, we’ll likely be seeing a similar back-to-front struggle in the TV series, though during the trains earlier years.
With presumably 10 hours of runtime, the series should be able to spend a bit more time in the compartments of other passengers. Hopefully we get to explore more of train life and tease out a little more thematic complexity than Back Train Good, Front Train Bad. But then again, it was the efficient storytelling that made Bong’s film so good.
IMDB
Will there be a season 2?
Snowpiercer has already been renewed for a second season with an additional 10 episodes in development and slotted for 2021. Actors like Sakina Jeffrey (House of Cards), Damian Young (Ozark), Rowan Blanchard (Girl Meets World), Steven Ogg and Sean Bean (Ned Stark on Game of Thrones) have all been confirmed for the second season—but Season 1 headliners Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly are still TBD. We’ll have to see how that first season plays out, won’t we?
Source: Read Full Article
