TNT’s historical crime series The Alienist releases its debut trailer, pairing Luke Evans and Daniel Bruhl as historical investigators.
TNT’s television adaptation of Caleb Carr’s quasi-historical 1994 crime novel The Alienist represents an intriguing peak television offering. Showcasing its two high-profile primary stars in Daniel Bruhl and Luke Evans, the upcoming historically-themed crime series has released its debut trailer, showing the duo in 1896 New York, each bringing distinctive skill sets to solve a sting of murders.
As The Alienist trailer shows, the inciting incident of the series will be an escalating murder spree aimed at boy prostitutes, necessitating then-NYPD commissioner Theodore Roosevelt Roosevelt (Brian Gerghty) to hire unconventional help in Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Bruhl), a criminal psychologist whose special focus on mental pathologies classifies him as an “alienist.” Kreizler teams with a New York Times reporter named John Moore (Evans), peeling back dark layers of clues leading to the elusive killer. Amidst their oil-and-water partnership, the Alienist and the Reporter will utilize nascent forensic techniques, charting new territory in criminal investigation. During the investigation, the duo find themselves in the orbit of Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning), a police secretary with ambitions to one day become the NYPD’s first female detective.
Daniel Bruhl comes off his role as Zemo in Captain America: Civil War, German drama Alone in Berlin and will appear in 2017 sci-fi film The God Particle. His co-star in former dragon slayer of The Hobbit Trilogy Luke Evans also has a full plate of projects, coming off the uber-lucrative Furious 7 and The Girl on the Train. He recently appeared as legendary Disney douche Gaston in the live-action Beauty and the Beast and will play Wonder Woman creator William Marston in the provocative historical biopic Professor Marston & the Wonder Women. Former child prodigy Dakota Fanning comes off Ewan McGregor's directorial debut American Pastoral and will be seen in 2018 films in franchise all-female update Ocean's Eight and a film adaptation of Sylvia Plath's classic novel The Bell Jar, written and directed by Kirsten Dunst.
While The Alienist initially hired Sean Astin to play Theodore Roosevelt, it appears that the former The Lord of the Rings co-star and adolescent leader of The Goonies has exited the series due to, as a statement explains, "scheduling difficulties." However, it was later announced that Brian Geraghty will play the rugged individualist former Rough Rider and eventual U.S. president. Geraghty just finished a run on NBC crime drama Chicago P.D. in 2016 in a role he played in shared-universe shows Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, having previously fielded runs on Ray Donovan and Boardwalk Empire and notably appeared in director Kathryn Bigelow's Oscars-dominating 2008 film The Hurt Locker.
While the existence of The Alienist television adaptation first manifested in 2015 with news that True Detective visionary Cary Fukunaga was tapped as director, he has since exited the project. However, stepping into that spot is Jakob Verbruggen, whose small screen episodic work was seen on the most recent season of celebrated anthology series Black Mirror along with entries for House of Cards, London Spy, The Bridge and The Fall.
The Alienist is slated for a premiere in late 2017 on TNT.