Watchmen's Danielle Deadwyler Will Star In HBO's J.J. Abrams Series Demimonde
"Demimonde," the long-gestating HBO series to be helmed by J.J. Abrams, has finally found its protagonist. Danielle Deadwyler, who played June in "Watchmen," and also starred in last year's "The Harder They Fall," has been cast in the much-anticipated limited series as Olive Reed (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Abrams' "Demimonde" was first announced back in 2018, and details about the project remained scant since then. Now, with Deadwyler being cast as Olive Reed, details about the show have emerged. Deadwyler's character is separated from her family, namely her husband and daughter, after a scientific accident, leading her to navigate cover-ups and conspiracies to reveal the truth. As Reed's family seems to be "lost to a dark, distant, other-world," the show might delve into the concept of parallel worlds, although it is too early for speculation.
'An epic and intimate sci-fi fantasy drama'
Apart from directing the series, Abrams will be writing the script for "Demimonde," while executive producing under the Bad Robot Productions banner, in association with Warner Bros. Co-showrunners and executive producers include Kira Snyder, Rand Ravich, and Far Shariat, while Ben Stephenson and Rachel Rusch Rich, will be executive producing and co-executive producing respectively.
Apart from Deadwyler, no one else has been added to the cast of the show, at the moment. The "Watchmen" actor has also worked on FX's "Atlanta," and is also set to star as Mamie Till in the upcoming biographical drama, "Till." Helmed by Chinonye Chukwu, "Till" follows Mamie's attempts at seeking justice after her teenage son, Emmett Till, is lynched in 1955. Whoopi Goldberg, Jalyn Hall, Frankie Faison, Jayme Lawson, Tosin Cole, Kevin Carroll, Sean Patrick Thomas, John Douglas Thompson, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Haley Bennett are also a part of the cast.
Apart from this, Deadwyler's most recent role includes playing Miranda in HBO Max's acclaimed "Station Eleven," which follows a group of traveling performers in a post-apocalyptic world.
"Demimonde" is currently in early production, and will be the first Abrams series since his 2008 sci-fi hybrid series, "Fringe." While "Demimonde" will be tonally, and possibly, thematically different than "Fringe," the 2008 show also featured storylines surrounding parallel worlds, fantastical occurrences, and procedural drama-styled episodes, as it was inspired by movies and shows such as "Altered States" and "The X-Files." For the most part, every episode of "Fringe" was a standalone mystery, which connected to the overarching universe of the show in interesting ways.
Abram's "Demimonde" does not have a release date attached to it yet.