Utopia Release Date Revealed by Amazon with New Trailer

Amazon Prime Video’s American remake of brief-but-beloved British television series Utopia is readying a premiere on the platform this fall—specifically September 25, as the newest trailer for the show has finally announced.  

The long-gestated series (originally planned back in 2015 for HBO by David Fincher), involves a group of fans whose obsession with a prophetic graphic novel about biological warfare thrusts them in the middle of a real-life conspiracy involving a pandemic. Now, by some cosmic coincidence, Utopia is set to arrive during a time in which such a plot proved shockingly prescient. Compounding the weirdness, the series showcases a comedically-leaning adventure.

With that in mind, do check out the new trailer for Amazon’s Utopia just below.

Indeed, the trailer in question expands upon the show’s parallels to our own global health crisis, revealing how a disease, called Stern’s Flu, rapidly escalates to pandemic status. Yet, as prophetic as that may seem to us in real-life, it is even more so to those who inhabit the show’s universe, since said outbreak was predicted with frightening accuracy in an ever-elusive graphic novel, the eponymous Utopia, which is being coveted by powerful forces, since it contains further secrets that could change the balance of the world.

Of course, with Utopia being somewhat lighthearted fare for such a close-to-home plot, the task of keeping the graphic novel out of the wrong hands has fallen to a ragtag group led by virologist Michael Stearns, played by headliner Rainn Wilson (Star Trek: Discovery, The Office), who, considered somewhat of a has-been in his field, suddenly finds his particular brand of expertise in dire need. He is joined by a diverse assemblage put together by chance, consisting of young obsessives of the prophetic graphic novel along with activists and fellow peers in the scientific world, all of whom have come together by chance to free the world from a bleakly fatalistic, pandemic-pushed future under control of evil elites.

Wilson may be the headliner for Utopia, but he is joined by an impressive supporting cast, which most notably includes film star John Cusack, who, for the first time in a storied career, makes his debut as a regular for a television series. Also onboard are Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day), Sasha Lane (Hellboy), Desmin Borges (You’re the Worst), Dan Byrd (Cougar Town), Ashleigh LaThrop (The Handmaid’s Tale), Javon “Wanna” Walton (Euphoria), Christopher Denham (Billions), Cory Michael Smith (Gotham), and newcomer Farrah Mackenzie.

Amazon’s Utopia manifests as the creation of Gillian Flynn, who adapts the two-season-spanning 2013-2014 U.K. series of the same name from creator Dennis Kelly. Flynn, who broke big as the author of the novel and subsequent screenplay for Gone Girl, comes into this series after a writing run for HBO’s 2018 Amy Adams-headlined drama series, Sharp Objects, and the screenplay for director Steve McQueen’s 2018 crime drama, Widows. Flynn serves here as executive-producer/showrunner and writer, joined in the latter capacity by original series creator Dennis Kelly and Ryan Enright. The show’s stable of directors consists of Toby Haynes, Susanna Fogel and J.D. Dillard. Interestingly enough, original creator Kelly has his hands full with an HBO series of his own as creator of the upcoming Jude Law/Naomie Harris-headlined mystery series, The Third Day.

Utopia Release Date

Utopia is set to unleash the story of a pandemic (to a 2020-worn audience who knows about that stuff all too well,) on Friday, September 25.