Two years after it was announced, Netflix's Spiderhead recently got its first trailer, showcasing the dystopian world being adapted from writer George Saunders' short story.
The clip sees action star Chris Hemsworth, known for playing more physically demanding roles, turn 'Mad Scientist' as the head of an experiment conducted at the Spiderhead Penitentiary, where Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett, playing Jeff and Rachel, respectively, are being kept. The two prisoners volunteer to take emotion-altering drugs in order to shorten their sentences, leading them to grapple with their pasts.
Netflix announced Spiderhead in 2019 and later, in 2020, announced Chris Hemsworth and Jurnee Smollett had been added to the project's cast. Joining them was Tron: Legacy's Joseph Kosinski, attached to direct, and Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who were attached to pen the screenplay. Filming took place in Queensland, Australia, where it helped provide the local economy with a much needed boost, following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spiderhead is based on a short story written by George Saunders, published in The New Yorker in 2010, Escape From Spiderhead. The story was set in a dystopian not-too-distant future and was praised for its themes of mental health and despair in society, the latter of which is a common theme in Saunders' work.
Read the full synopsis below:
In a state-of-the-art penitentiary run by brilliant visionary Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth), inmates wear a surgically attached device that administers dosages of mind-altering drugs in exchange for commuted sentences. There are no bars, no cells, or orange jumpsuits. In Spiderhead, incarcerated volunteers are free to be themselves. Until they’re not. At times, they’re a better version. Need to lighten up? There’s a drug for that. At a loss for words? There’s a drug for that, too. But when two subjects, Jeff (Miles Teller) and Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett), form a connection, their path to redemption take a twistier turn, as Abnesti’s experiments start to push the limits of free will altogether. Based on The New Yorker short story by George Saunders, SPIDERHEAD is a genre-bending and darkly funny psychological thriller directed by Joseph Kosinski (TRON: Legacy, Top Gun: Maverick) and written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick (Deadpool, Zombieland).
Netflix's Spiderhead is set to be available for streaming on June 17.
Source: YouTube