War of the Worlds (2019 TV series)

War of the Worlds is a television series produced by Fox Networks Group and StudioCanal-backed Urban Myth Films. The series is written by Howard Overman, and directed by Gilles Coulier and Richard Clark. The series is a loose adaptation of the H.G. Wells 1898 novel of a similar name, and is the third television adaptation of the Wells Martian invasion novel. War of the Worlds consists of eight episodes, and first premiered in France on October 28, 2019. It has been renewed for a second season.[1]

This article is about the 2019 Fox/Canal+ adaptation. For the 2019 British adaptation for the BBC, see The War of the Worlds (British TV series).
War of the Worlds
French title card
Genre
Created byHoward Overman
Based onThe War of the Worlds
by H. G. Wells
Written byHoward Overman
Directed by
Starring
Country of origin
  • United States
  • France
Original languages
  • English
  • French
No. of series1
No. of episodes8 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
  • Howard Overman
  • Julian Murphy
  • Johnny Capps
  • Gilles Coulier
ProducerGareth Williams
Production locations
  • United Kingdom
  • France
  • Belgium
Running time60 minutes
Production companies
Distributor
Release
Original network
Original releaseOctober 28, 2019 (2019-10-28) –
present (present)
External links
Website

Premise

The series takes place in present-day Europe, but it serves as a re-imagining of the classic H. G. Wells' novel.[2]

In this new take on War Of The Worlds, when astronomers detect a transmission from another star, it is definitive proof of intelligent extra-terrestrial life. Earth's population waits for further contact with bated breath, but does not have to wait long. Within days, mankind is all but wiped out, with just pockets of humanity left in an eerily deserted world. As alien ships appear in the sky, the survivors ask a burning question — who are these attackers and why are they hell-bent on our destruction?

— Den of Geek[3]

Cast

Main lead

Main supporting

The below actors are credited in the opening titles of only one or two episodes in which they play a significant role.

Episodes
No.TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal French air date
1Episode 1Gilles CoulierHoward OvermanOctober 28, 2019 (2019-10-28)
Astronomer Catherine Durand detects a strong signal from Ross 128 which is of intelligent origin. Soon afterwards a large group of meteors impacts the centers of all major inhabited areas of Earth. They are indeed metallic spacecraft. Blind teenager Emily can directly hear strange pulsing sounds, while elsewhere scientist, Bill, recognizes the magnetic signal in the pulses (received by equipment from his brain research); he tries to warn his son, Dan, and goes to find his ex-wife, Helen. The magnetic signal increases and quickly kills all humans who are not underground, underwater or in metallic rooms. In London, Sarah Gresham, with her children, Tom and Emily, happen to drive into an underground parade, while her husband, Jonathan, is in Paris, where his taxi plunges into the Seine at an opportune moment. Kariem, entering England illegally inside a metal tanker, finds himself alone in a strange environment. Catherine's sister, Sophia, tries to reach her at the observatory.
2Episode 2Gilles CoulierHoward OvermanOctober 28, 2019 (2019-10-28)
In London, in Paris and in the French Alps, the survivors try to reach their loved ones, walking among the dead and wondering about the motives of the invaders. Both Helen and Sarah find it hard to grasp this new reality. Tom and Emily struggle to understand their mother's behaviour, especially when she refuses to let them help Kariem who has been injured in the attack. Jonathan decides to make his way alone back to England. Neuroscientist, Bill, finds the alien methods mindboggling. Kariem makes some bad decisions based on fear. Catherine despairs in the search for her sister, Sophia. In a Grenoble supermarket, Catherine, Colonel Mokrani and a group of French soldiers have a first encounter with lethal quadrupedal bots.
3Episode 3Gilles CoulierHoward OvermanNovember 4, 2019 (2019-11-04)
Helen and Bill arrive too late at Dan’s command center, but learn he escaped when a quadruped bot killed most of the personnel. They manage to incapacitate a quadruped and discover that it is a cyborg, with a biological interior. Sarah and her children meet Ash, an orderly, at a hospital. They find Kariem recuperating there, and Ash orders them to get over their previous meeting. Emily (and only Emily) hears the alien pulses, which temporarily restore her sight. Catherine is in shock when the alien pulses (which she hears on equipment) suddenly adds the song that she and her colleagues had once broadcast into space, confirming they attracted their attackers. Jonathan meets Chloe, who warns him of the quadrupeds, and they head north together – bound for London and Amiens, respectively. When they find Dan’s body outside, Helen asks Bill to find a way to kill the quadrupeds. A pack of quadrupeds approach the hospital.
4Episode 4Gilles CoulierHoward OvermanNovember 4, 2019 (2019-11-04)
Catherine finds the source of the sounds and Colonel Mokrani and his team go out to investigate. Sarah and her children have a close encounter with a quadruped. Sacha finds a meteor site and hears the noises Emily hears in London. Helen and Bill are determined to find a way to destroy all the quadruped cyborgs. Kariem and Emily bond. Arriving at her childhood home with Jonathan, Chloe finds Sacha and her policeman brother, Noah. Ash and Kariem return to the hospital and are startled to find that the quadruped bots have taken the nursery babies, after killing the other people there.
5Episode 5Richard ClarkHoward OvermanNovember 11, 2019 (2019-11-11)
Helen and Bill meet up with, and join, the Greshams' quintet of survivors. They all try to find a way to cope with their situation. Bill finds a student in Tom. Emily feels a strange connection with the alien invaders. Sacha overhears Chloe berating Noah for raping her when she was 15, resulting in Sacha. Emily and Kariem have sex. Further confirmation of what the quadruped cyborgs may be after is revealed when one kills a pregnant woman by removing the fetus. Jonathan is baffled by Sacha's behaviour, seeing him leave his "uncle" Noah to be killed. Catherine, Colonel Mokrani and his team discover a destroyed alien ship, containing some organic material ("is that what they look like?"), where some malfunctioning quadrupeds are harmlessly wandering through the wreckage.
6Episode 6Richard ClarkHoward OvermanNovember 11, 2019 (2019-11-11)
Emily's sight recovers as she hears the noise, then she calmly stares at a quadruped cyborg until it turns and walks away. Bill is intrigued by her connection to the cyborgs, others question it. Sacha discovers he has a connection to the cyborgs too – which cause him to briefly see a girl (Emily) he does not know. Jonathan, joined by Chloe and Sacha on the journey to the Channel and England, finds Sacha's behaviour very hard to understand, including Sacha's sudden interest in Emily, when he sees Jonathan's family photo. In London, the group of survivors make their way to the university lab where Bill and Tom try to gain information on the quadrupeds. They find the aliens know more about humans than they imagined possible. Emily clashes with her mother. Helen and Sarah take a gamble and end up in a precarious situation. Tom's birthday needs celebrating and everybody reconciles. Catherine and Mokrani's team return to the observatory, where they are surprised to find Sophia, but none of the other soldiers.
7Episode 7Richard ClarkHoward OvermanNovember 18, 2019 (2019-11-18)
Sophia survived when she walked into a mountainside service tunnel before the alien's deadly signal transmitted. She then found a young English boy, Theo, who she takes responsibility for. They spend some time with other survivors, before walking to Catherine's mountaintop. Bill tries to get information from Emily, but she is sympathetic to the aliens, rationalizing that humans killing in war is no different from the aliens killing 7 billion humans. Emily has two more friendly encounters with a quadruped cyborg, not telling anyone about the first instance, and Helen being killed by it in the second instance. At the start of Emily's second encounter, Sascha has a friendly cyborg encounter in France; both teenagers have visions of each other. Chloe discovers that Sascha stole Jonathan's picture, convincing her that he is twisted enough to have facilitated Noah's death. Sascha attacks Jonathan, then runs into the forest. Sophia, who has had no choice but to kick her addictions, convinces Catherine that the world may end, so she should have no choice but to act on her feelings for Colonel Mokrani. Catherine develops a theory that the high-frequency alien noise connects all the cyborgs, similar to birds having innate connections. She wonders if her low frequency science array caused the nearby alien crash.
8Episode 8Richard ClarkHoward OvermanNovember 18, 2019 (2019-11-18)
Catherine, Sophia and Mokrani's team go looking for other survivors. Ash doubts Emily's motives while Bill wrestles with his new reality. Jonathan learns the truth about Sacha and Chloe. Emily and Kariem go looking for answers. Sacha decides to follow Jonathan to England in hope of meeting his daughter. Catherine puts her theory to the test.

Production

Development

War of the Worlds is produced by Fox Networks Group and StudioCanal.[5][6] AGC Television co-finances and co-distributes the series.[2]

Gilles Coulier and Richard Clark each directed four episodes of the series, with Coulier directing the first four episode and Clark directing the last four.[7] The series was written by Howard Overman.[7] The series is executive produced by Overman, Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps.[8] By October 2019, the creative team had begun work on a second season.[1]

Casting

Gabriel Byrne and Elizabeth McGovern star in the series. They are joined by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Bayo Gbadamosi as co-stars, and Stéphane Caillard, Adel Bencherif, Guillaume Gouix, Léa Drucker and Natasha Little as main supporting cast.[3][4] Greg Kinnear was originally set to star, but was not listed in the starring cast list when it was revealed by Deadline Hollywood in January 2019.[2][4]

Filming

Production for Series 1 took place in the United Kingdom, France and Belgium.[2][9] The series was filmed in Bristol in March 2019,[10] as well as filming in Cardiff, Newport and London.[9][11]

Series 2 began filming on July 13, 2020[12] and wrapped filming on October 22, 2020.[13]

Release

Broadcasting

The first series was released in full on MyCanal in France on October 28, 2019,[2][14] before being broadcast from October 28 in weekly batches of two episodes,[15][16] and was released in most parts of Europe and Africa weekly between October 30 and December 18, 2019.[17][18] The series premiered in the United States on February 16, 2020 on Epix,[19] in the UK on March 5, 2020,[20] and in Canada on October 7, 2020 on CBC Television.[21][22]

Canal+ and Fox Networks Group have the rights to release the series in Europe and Africa. AGC Television distribute the series to the North American market, and co-distribute with StudioCanal to Latin America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. Fox Networks Group release the series in Europe.[2][6] The series broadcasts on Fox in more than 50 countries.[7]

References
  1. Croll, Ben (October 14, 2019). "Behind the Scenes With Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern on 'War of the Worlds'". Variety. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  2. Wiseman, Andreas (2019-01-29). "'War Of The Worlds': Gabriel Byrne & Elizabeth McGovern Lead Cast In Sci-Fi Series From Canal+, FNG & AGC". Deadline. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  3. "New War Of The Worlds TV series cast, images, plot and more". Den of Geek.
  4. "War of the Worlds - FOX". Fox. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  5. Clarke, Stewart (2018-11-05). "Greg Kinnear in Talks to Star in Canal Plus, Fox Adaptation of 'War of the Worlds'". Variety. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  6. Clarke, Stewart (2019-06-27). "First Look at Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern in 'War of the Worlds' Series". Variety. Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  7. Hughes, Janet (2019-02-24). "Filming to start on epic, star-studded sci-fi TV series". gloucestershirelive. Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  8. Clarke, Stewart (July 20, 2018). "'War of the Worlds' Series Coming From Fox Europe and Africa, Canal Plus".
  9. "War of the Worlds to film UK locations". The Knowledge.
  10. Guild, New War of the Worlds adaptation filming in Bristol | The Production. "New War of the Worlds adaptation filming in Bristol | The Production Guild". productionguild.com.
  11. "www.kftv.com/news/2019/1/21/the-war-of-the-worlds-drama-filming-in-uk-and-europe". kftv.com. Retrieved 2019-10-06.
  12. Kanter, Jake (10 July 2020). "War Of The Worlds: How Season 2 Will Film During Coronavirus". Deadline. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  13. "It's a wrap!". 22 October 2020.
  14. "Une date pour la série événement "La guerre des mondes" sur Canal+" [A date for the "War of the Worlds" event series on Canal +]. C News (in French). October 8, 2019. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  15. "La guerre des mondes saison 1" [The War of the Worlds Season 1]. L'Obs (in French). Retrieved October 30, 2019.
  16. "La Guerre des Mondes : une date pour la série de Canal+" [The War of the Worlds: a date for the Canal + series]. AlloCiné (in French). October 7, 2019. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  17. "Fox's War of the Worlds show has hints of The Day of the Triffids - htxt.africa". htxt.co.za. Retrieved 2019-10-06.
  18. "War of the Worlds - FOX for everyone in everywhere". Fox Africa. Retrieved October 17, 2019.
  19. "EPIX(R) Lands Urban Myth Films' Reimagining of "War of the Worlds"". The Futon Critic. November 21, 2019.
  20. Elliott, Dave (16 January 2020). "Fox Sets March UK Premiere Date For Their 'War of The Worlds' Adaptation Starring Gabriel Byrne". GeekTown. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  21. "War of the Worlds - CBC Media Centre". Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  22. "CBC ANNOUNCES FALL 2020 PREMIERE DATES FOR NEW AND RETURNING SERIES". September 10, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.