Bringing the post-apocalyptic story of the critically acclaimed 2013 film to cable, TBS’s Snowpiercer got its first trailer at 2019 San Diego Comic-Con. Little of the rebellion-centric plot set aboard a train in perpetual motion seems to have been changed, and fans got their first look at Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs as the show’s leads.
Based on the same literary source material as the South Korean-Czech film starring Chris Evans, the Snowpiercer TV adaptation was announced all the way back in 2015, then planned to be under the TNT umbrella. After years in production limbo and a move to TBS, Snowpiercer is at last on a solid track to a 2020 series premiere. The film was a major critical success when it initially released, so it’s little surprise that the TV retelling has scored Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) to play in leading roles as elite passenger Melanie Cavill and impoverished revolutionary Layton Well, respectively.
Set on the same Earth frozen in a grave error by humans trying to reverse global warming as the film, an all-new trailer for the Snowpiercer series was unveiled at today’s Snowpiercer panel at 2019 San Diego Comic-Con. From the looks of it, the show looks to hit many of the source material’s high notes, while also injecting more interpersonal and political elements that better fit the TV medium. Voice of the Train Melanie Cavill (Connelly) serves as a lens into how lavishly the passengers at the front of humanity’s last refuge live, while rear passenger Layton Well (Diggs) seems to serve both as a catalyst for the coming revolution and a bridge between his downtrodden brethren and Cavill. Though Chris Evans’ Curtis Everett character from the movie evidently doesn’t exist in this retelling, antagonist Wilford is still at the head of the Snowpiercer and all its ills.
With its leading man and woman coming from opposite ends of the train divided along socioeconomic lines, the TV adaptation of Snowpiercer is poising itself to be a slower, more intimate look at the lives of people from both sides, as well as everywhere in between. The show appears to share the same central conflict with the film – and even seems impressively willing to explore the source material’s brutality when showing how the external cold is still used as cruel a punishment for rule-breakers – but the interpersonal focus may allow it to tell more nuanced stories explaining every train car’s motivations and struggles.
Beyond the benefits provided by serialized storytelling and the impactful performances delivered by Connelly, Diggs, and others, it remains to be seen exactly how TBS’s Snowpiercer looks to set itself apart from the 2013 film. From what’s been shown here, the answer may be little else beyond a switch in perspectives.
