#‘Utopia’ First Look: Amazon’s New Series Has Comic Book Nerds on the Run from Trained Assassins

Later this week, we’ll get a glimpse at some upcoming new shows thanks to panels from Comic-Con at Home. One of those shows will be Amazon’s new series Utopia, an adaptation of the 2013 British series of the same name that is in the hands of Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn, who is serving as creator, executive producer, writer, and showrunner.

Utopia focuses on a group of comic book nerds who became friends online after dissecting every detail of a popular fictional comic book called Dystopia. With a sequel called Utopia finally close to arrival, the gang gets together at a convention to get a sneak peek, but they suddenly find themselves being chased by trained assassins who are trying to stop anyone from reading it. Before the panel reveals even more about the series later this week, a few Utopia first look photos have surfaced online.

Utopia First Look Photos

Entertainment Weekly has our first look at Utopia, revealing the main characters Ian (Dan Byrd), Wilson Wilson (Desmin Borges), Samantha (Jessica Rothe), and Becky (Ashleigh LaThrop), seen above from left to right.

So why do trained killers want to kill a bunch of nerds obsessed with a comic? They might get some answers from Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane), the protagonist at the center of the comic book they love so much. It turns out that Jessica is not a fictional character at all, and she thinks that Utopia has something to do with her father going missing.

Also part of the story is Kevin Christie, a billionaire philanthropist played by John Cusack. This is a character who wasn’t part of the original series in the UK, and it’s part of Gillian Flynn’s desire to add more of a focus on government conspiracies and make the series feel like it wasn’t just treading the same territory. Flynn told EW:

“I’m a huge fan of all those conspiracy thrillers that came out after Watergate. All of [the British Utopia] plays very sleekly. I wanted mine to play bumpy, dirty, raw, real—like you’re walking on the gum on the sidewalk and smelling the garbage in the alley.”

Kevin Christie has some kind of connection to a new disease that’s being studied by Dr. Michael Stearns, played by The Office favorite Rainn Wilson. How does this tie in to the plot with the mysterious comic book Utopia? You’ll probably have to watch the series to find out.

A series adaptation of Utopia was once in the works at HBO with David Fincher attached to it. He came close to getting it off the ground, and even had a cast assembled to make it happen. But Fincher and HBO disagreed on the budget, he walked away from the project, and it ended up shifting over to Amazon. Flynn was on board as a writer for Fincher’s version, so maybe some of what the filmmaker envisioned for the series will still be present here.

Utopia is slated to arrive on Amazon sometime this fall, and we’ll possibly see a trailer this week as part of the show’s Comic-Con at Home presence.

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