The Margaret Atwood novel will be adapted into a 10-episode series for the streaming content creator.
File this under: best news ever. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, Top of the Lake, West Wing) has signed onto to star in a Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood's feminist dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. The 10-episode series will go straight-to-series with Bruce Miller (The 100) as a showrunner.
The Handmaid's Tale Release Date
The Handmaid's Tale is slated to stream on Hulu sometime in April 2017. You know, if the world doesn't fall into chaos before then.
The Handmaid's Tale Cast
Elisabeth Moss will lead the cast as Offred. Rounding out the rest of the all-star cast (seriously, this cast is so good) is: Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Samira Wiley, Max Minghella, Madeline Brewer, Ann Dowd and O-T Fagbenle. Speaking about the role to Entertainment Weekly, Moss said:
We never wanted the show to be this relevant ...This will go down as one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had, but to be able to have a voice in this is an entirely different experience for me. It only makes me want to work harder.
The Handmaid's Tale Story
For those who haven't read this modern classic, The Handmaid's Tale is set in part of what was the United States. A harsh theocratic government has taken over following a staged terrorist attack blamed on Islamic terrorits. In this new state order, women's rights are stripped away by the totalitarian Christian government.
Our protagonist is Offred, a "handmaid" who is part of a class of women kept as concubines, valued for her fertility, but not her personhood in a dying world threatened with climate change, religious fundamentalism, and depopulation. So, yeah, pretty darn topical.
Previously, Offred have been played on-screen by Natasha Richardson in a 1990 feature based on the Atwood novel. Here's the trailer, if you want to check it out/appreciate how far the art of the trailer has come in the last few decades...
The Handmaid's Tale Synopsis
Here's the official synopsis for the series:
The drama series, based on the award-winning, best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly part of the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid in the Commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life, Offred navigates between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.
The Handmaid's Tale Writer & Director
The Handmaid's Tale comes to Hulu from MGM Television and is created, executive produced and written by Bruce Miller. Miller told Entertainment Weekly of the project:
If you’ve read the book, you know that this is an unbelievably rich world and story. I have no trouble coming up with what’s going to happen in season 13. I’m chomping at the bit to tell more and more and more.
The show is being executive produced by Warren Littlefield, Daniel Wilson and Fran Sears, and Ilene Chaiken, with MGM serving as the international distributor for the series. MGM's Mark Burnett, president of television and digital, and Steve Stark, president of television development and production, said (apparently, in unison) of the project:
The Handmaid’s Tale is a project that we have been committed to bringing to life as its story remains as powerful today as it did when Margaret first published her novel. The Handmaid’s Tale has won multiple awards inspiring a film, a graphic novel, an opera, a ballet and finally, for the first time, a compellingly immersive drama series that has found the perfect home at Hulu and its star in Elisabeth Moss.
The Handmaid's Tale Photos
Judging from this few official photos we've gotten from The Handmaid's Tale, the Hulu series seems to be as beautifully shot as it is cast...
