“The world we inhabit is murky…”
Fresh from its debut at this weekend’s MCM Comic-Con in London is the full-length trailer for the forthcoming Alex Rider TV series. In it, War & Peace and The White Queen’s Otto Farrant plays the title role of Rider, a British schoolboy dragged into the murky world of international espionage.
Featuring helicopters, snowboard chases, sinister baddies, a spy school and some seriously shady grown-ups, the TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s Young Adult thriller series looks a hoot.
See for yourself here:
Joining Farrant in the cast are Line Of Duty and This Is England’s Vicky McClure as the mysterious Mrs Jones, Ronke Adekoluejo as Rider’s legal guardian Jack Starbright, Broadchurch’s Andrew Buchan as Rider’s spy uncle, as well as a host of other new and established names. Oh, and yes, you’ve spotted right, that’s Castle Black’s Olly from Game Of Thrones, also known as Brenock O’Conor, playing Rider’s best friend Tom.
This eight-part series marks the character’s television debut. The first of Horowitz’s Rider novels was adapted for the big screen with 2006 feature Stormbreaker, which was intended to kick-start an intended franchise that never took off.
The TV show adapts book two of the collection, Point Blanc. Here’s the official synopsis:
Alex and Tom lead ordinary teenage lives, navigating between school, girls and social lives until Alex’s world is quickly capsized as he is coerced by Alan Blunt, played by Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones, The Tunnel), to undergo a dangerous, covert mission. Blunt commands The Department, a secret underworld offshoot of MI6, where Ian Rider spent his life as a field agent. Blunt entraps the unsuspecting Alex to work as an undercover agent at the Point Blanc academy.
To date, eleven Alex Rider novels have been published with a twelfth, Nightshade, due out next year to mark the novels’ twentieth anniversary.
No UK broadcaster or air date has yet been confirmed for Alex Rider, but we’ll bring you word as soon as @AlexRiderTV confirms where to watch.
Read about more new British TV shows on their way in the next year or so, here.
