Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, The Peripheral is being brought to life by Scott B. Smith, with the help of Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new series.
When Will ‘The Peripheral’ Be Out?
The Peripheral will premiere on Prime Video on Friday, October 21, with its first episode, and the show will air on a weekly basis.
Given its release schedule, the show will run until Friday, December 9, as it has eight episodes in total.
What Is ‘The Peripheral’ About?
The Peripheral is based on William Gibson’s book of the same name, which was released in 2014 and is followed by a novel titled Agency.
Moretz stars as Flynne Fisher, a girl from Blue Ridge Mountains who lives with her brother, Burton, a Marine veteran, and their terminally ill mother in 2032.
Flynne and Burton make ends meet by “jockeying,” using Burton’s avatar to complete challenging game levels for high-paying customers, but when Flynne takes the chance to try a new sim for Burton she is actually thrust into the future.
Brought into London in the year 2099, Flynne becomes immersed in a fascinating mystery by a woman named Aelita, but it leads to her and her family being put in grave danger.
During her time in London, she encounters a man named Wilf Netherton, who could be the key to protecting her family and also to solving the mystery.
Director and executive producer Vincenzo Natali spoke to Newsweek about making the series, saying he’d always hoped to adapt a Gibson novel for the screen, but that it was going to be something different.
“I have a long storied relationship with William Gibson’s work because I was, for a long time, going to do an adaptation of his first novel Neuromancer,” Natali told Newsweek. “And, in a way, I feel like this is part of a continuum because even though that movie didn’t get made I got to know Mr. Gibson, and he sent me The Peripheral.
“In a way, I’m sort of happy it’s The Peripheral that ultimately was made, because I feel like it is relevant, at this moment perhaps more than any other work of fiction that I’ve read. Not just in the sense of it being predictive, but really in the sense of capturing the essence of what it feels like to be alive now, and the kind of complexity that we deal with on a daily basis and the weird dissonance between living in the present and living in the future, it feels like I am in a science fiction film especially as we speak to you on [Zoom].
“It was classic Gibson in that regard and it was sort of a return to science fiction for him because he had a trilogy of books that he did that were not, strictly speaking, science fiction, so it was exhilarating in that way.”
Natali added: “Then he created this amazing vision of not one but two futures, and there’s a kind of romance between them, there’s a relationship between these two worlds, they’re both sort of enamoured with each other and weirdly reflective of each other, even though they are polar opposites.
“It was never going to be a movie because it is so complex, and there’s so much texture and detail to it that you would lose in that format that it had to be a TV show, and then, of course, I had this amazing stroke of good luck to have Lisa and Jonathan Nolan stepping in, and I knew from that moment [that] this was going to be a beautiful thing.”
Who Will Star in ‘The Peripheral’?
Moretz is joined in the cast by Jack Reynor as Burton, Garry Carr as Wilf, Charlotte Riley as Aelita, and T’Nia Miller as Cherise.
Other key cast members include JJ Feild as Lev, Adelind Horan as Billy Ann Baker, Alex Hernandez as Tommy Constantine, Austin Rising as Leon, and Amber Rose Revah as Grace.
Is There a Trailer for ‘The Peripheral’?
Yes, a trailer for The Peripheral was released ahead of the show’s premiere on Prime Video that gave viewers a first look at the imaginative world and what’s in store for Moretz’s Flynne and her family.
The Peripheral premieres on Friday, October 21, on Prime Video.
