The « Snowpiercer » TV series cast, premiere date and differences from the Bong Joon-ho movie revealed in advance of the first episode’s debut on TNT.
The TV adaptation of the 2013 post-apocalyptic action-thriller Snowpiercer will premiere on TNT on Sunday, May 17 at 9 p.m. Eastern. Taking place more than seven years after an ecological disaster has turned the planet into a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer follows the remnants of humanity, who live aboard a train endlessly circling the planet.
If that gloss on the premise isn’t enough for you to dive in, here’s everything else worth knowing before the Snowpiercer premiere.
In the 2013 movie, an army of the poor—held at gunpoint in squalor, in the tail compartments of the train—march on the front of the train, fighting through the richer compartments and the train’s elite to reach the engine room and confront the train’s creator, Wilford (Ed Harris).
The Snowpiercer series takes a twistier path to revolution, at least in its first few episodes. Rather than the stark division between the haves and have-nots motivating the revolution portrayed in the movie, the Snowpiercer series recreate multiple classes and social institutions throughout the 1001 train compartments. It also folds in different dramatic structures, including a murder mystery opening the season.
The Snowpiercer TV series stars Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly as opposites in the class structure of the train. Diggs plays Layton Wells, a former homicide detective now living in the tail of the train, where he spends his days raising rats and sniffing Chronole (Kronole in the movie): an industrial waste with narcotic effects. Connelly is Melanie Cavill, a first class passenger who works as the Voice of the Train, airing daily announcements over the train-wide PA.
Other Snowpiercer cast members include Mickey Sumner, Annalise Basso, Sasha Frolova, Alison Wright, Benjamin Haigh, Roberto Urbina, Katie McGuinness, Susan Park, Lena Hall, Sheila Vand, Sam Otto, Iddo Goldberg, Jaylin Fletcher, Rowan Blanchard, Steven Ogg, Timothy V.
