Dark sci-fi meets the brutal Wild West in the first trailer for HBO’s ‘Westworld’

By Rick Marshall Published June 20, 2016

The first trailer for HBO’s upcoming Westworld series has finally arrived, offering our best look so far at the dark drama based on the 1973 film of the same name about a futuristic, Wild West theme park where the artificially intelligent inhabitants rebel against their human keepers.

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The 98-second preview of the series offers an impressively comprehensive taste of what the show has in store for audiences, as well as a look at its all-star cast. Among the familiar faces appearing in the trailer are Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs) and four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris (The Hours).

Executive produced and co-written by Oscar nominee Jonathan Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight), who also directs two of the episodes, Westworld is set in a future time period at the dawn of artificial consciousness.

The series’ cast also includes Evan Rachel Wood (Mildred Pierce), James Marsden (X-Men), Thandie Newton (Crash), Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America), Tessa Thompson (Creed), Sidse Babett Knudsen (Borgen), Jimmi Simpson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Rodrigo Santoro (300), Shannon Woodward (Raising Hope), Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Chernobyl Diairies), Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), Simon Quarterman (The Devil Inside), Angela Sarafyan (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn), and Clifton Collins, Jr. (Pacific Rim).

Set to debut with a 10-episode first season, the series is co-produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions, and co-written by Lisa Joy (Burn Notice, Pushing Daisies).

Westworld is expected to debut on HBO at some point in the fall.

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