J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan are taking us back to Michael Crichton's Westworld with an HBO television series built on the foundation of the concepts introduced in the author/filmmaker's 1973 classic, and a teaser trailer has been released to give us a look at what they've done with Crichton's ideas.
Westworld may be an amusement park, but the tone of the trailer is far from amusing. This thing is dark and chilling, and while it assures that I would never actually go to the park if it existed, I will probably be watching this show.
In case you need a refresher on what the original movie was about:
A lawyer and businessman are among the visitors to Westworld, a futuristic theme park where the gunhands and dance hall girls are all robots programmed to serve the guests' violent and lustful fantasies – until something goes wrong with their circuitry.
No longer the guests' obliging victim, a black-clad humanoid gunslinger turns on the two heroes. The ultimate amusement turns deadly serious as the men are pursued to a deadly climax by an implacable, unstoppable foe.
Set to premiere on HBO in October, the Westworld series stars Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, James Marsden, Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Ben Barnes, Thandie Newton, and Lili Simmons.