Steve Buscemi, Greg Kinnear and Mireille Enos are the latest stars announced to join the cast of Channel 4 and Amazon Prime’s upcoming anthology series “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.”
Buscemi, who won Golden Globe and SAG awards for his lead role on HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” will take the lead role in an episode entitled “Crazy Diamond.” Buscemi plays an average man who decides to help a gorgeous, synthetic woman when she approaches him with an illegal plan that could change his life completely. The comic film noir episode is written by Tony Grisoni and directed by Marc Munden.
Kinnear and Enos will play the parents of young lead Jack Gore in a sci-fi episode entitled “Father Thing,” which sees the world under attack as aliens quietly invade our homes. Charlie (Gore) must make the most difficult decisions imaginable to protect his mother (Enos) and the human race, as he is among the first to realize that humans are being replaced by dangerous monsters – his father (Kinnear) is amongst the first to change. It is written and directed by Michael Dinner, who is also an executive producer on the show.
Each story in the 10-episode anthology series is based on a short story by legendary sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, whose works have previously been adapted into such classic and blockbusting movies as “Blade Runner,” “Total Recall” and “Minority Report.” As well as Grisoni and Dinner the short stories have been adapted for television by U.S. and U.K. writers including Ronald D. Moore, Jack Thorne, Matthew Graham, David Farr, Dee Rees and Travis Beacham.
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The impressive cast already announced for the series includes Bryan Cranston, who also serves as an executive producer, Timothy Spall, Anne Reid, Tuppence Middleton, Hayley Squires, Jack Reynor, Benedict Wong and Geraldine Chaplin. Cranston’s on-screen role is yet to be confirmed.
Spall will headline the show’s first episode, “The Commuter,” as an unassuming employee at a train station who is alarmed to discover some commuters are taking the train to a town that shouldn’t exist. When he chooses to investigate he discovers an alternate reality that forces him to confront his own family struggles. Reid, Middleton and “I, Daniel Blake” break-out star Squires all co-star in the episode which also stars Rebecca Manley and Anthony Boyle as Spall’s wife and son, respectively.
Reynor, Wong and Chaplin will all star in an episode entitled “Impossible Planet.” Reynor and Wong play disillusioned and indifferent space tourism employees who take up an elderly woman’s (Chaplin) request for a trip back to Earth despite knowing the planet’s existence to be a long-debunked myth. The episode is written and directed by David Farr.
“Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” was commissioned by Channel 4, which will air the series later this year. Amazon Prime Video will launch it in the U.S. The series has already begun production in the U.K. and moves to Chicago this week.
