It isn’t the most forthcoming of videos, even for viral marketing, but the first teaser for FX’s upcoming The Strain TV series, based on the bestselling horror novel by Guillermo del Toro, does give you a bit of an idea about how the titular plague was started. Sort of “Black Deathy,” isn’t it? The real mystery here is, why would that woman just sit frozen like that with her glass of wine held up? Creepy.
The series is created by del Toro and Chuck Hogan, the co-writers of the novel, and will be showrun by former Lost honcho Carlton Cuse. The premise of the pilot to the vampire series is as follows: “A plane lands at John F. Kennedy International Airport with lights off and doors sealed. Epidemiologist Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and his team are sent to investigate. On board they find two hundred corpses and four survivors. The situation deteriorates when the bodies begin disappearing from morgues. Goodweather and a small group of helpers find themselves battling to protect not only their own loved ones, but the entire city, from an ancient threat to humanity.”
The pilot was written by del Toro and Hogan and directed by del Toro. Playing the Van Helsing-ish lead of the piece will be none other than David Bradley, who of course just played William Hartnell in the wonderfully wistful An Adventure in Space and Time. Coincidentally, Bradley is replacing another Doctor, John Hurt, who originally filmed the pilot but had to bow out before it went to series. 13 episodes have been commissioned and are due to premiere in July of 2014.
What do you think? Are you excited for a Guillermo del Toro-style show? Will The Strain be able to rock the horror TV show landscape of its reigning champion The Walking Dead? Let us know in the comments below.
I absolutely love The Strain trilogy, so I’ve been looking forward to the series for a while. I’m still disappointed that John Hurt left, because I really think he’s perfect for that role. Bradley is good too though, so I’m not worried.
The rats are an interesting choice for the first teaser…it makes sense in the context of the story, but if you don’t already know what you’re looking at, it’s not very informative. But what teaser is, I suppose.
Marli Vlock maybe you misunderstand what The Walking Dead is trying to be, because I think they’re both going for completely different things.
Jacka – I may be wrong, but I believe all three books were written at once – book one, being the first act, was a lot of character and premise setup – book two, being the second act, ramps up the stakes, and book three is the resolution..
Since you’ve been introduced to the premise and characters – I recommend giving book two a try. If you don’t care about the stakes at the end of it then yeah – fair enough, not your thing.. but just reading book one, you’re kind of just getting character discriptions..
Give book two a shot.. (particularly if you’re in any way drawn to stories where bad goes to worse..)
That being said – I’ve got friends who swear by game of thrones, and I just can’t get past the first few chapters..
So – to each there own.. but still – you might be glad you did if you give the strain books another shot. ::shrug::
I thought the Strain (didn’t read either of the follow-ups) was decent but not particularly memorable. I thought at the time that it’d probably make for a better movie than a book, so I’ll be interested to see how this thing goes.
Hell yeah! The Strain is everything The walking dead tries to be but never quite succeeds and in the hands of Del Toro….epic awesomeness!
I can’t wait! The book series is really fantastic, can’t wait to see how del Toro brings it to life on the screen.