HBO’s ‘Westworld’ Reveals New Images From the 2016 Sci-Fi Series

We still don’t know much about Westworld, HBO’s upcoming adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1973 science fiction movie about robots running amuck at a high-tech theme park, but it was originally supposed to premiere later this year. Then it got delayed until 2016. On the bright side, a new batch of images from the series was released, giving us a glimpse at one of the most intriguing new shows on the horizon.

The images comes to us from Collider and they showcase the show’s star-studded cast. In the pictures below, you can get glimpses of Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, James Marsden, Evan Rachel Wood, and the imposing backside of Ed Harris.  We don’t know who most of these actors are playing quite yet, but Hopkins will play the visionary creator of a theme park populated by advanced robots, and Harris will play a deadly gunslinger bot (a role filled by Yul Brynner in the original film).

Crichton’s Westworld is a film bursting with interesting ideas, even if the execution gets a little silly. The original film takes place entirely in a theme park composed of various worlds based on historical locations (West World, Medieval World, Roman World, etc), but the population of each world is comprised entirely of robots. As you might expect, things go wrong and the robots rise up against their creators and the hapless tourists who get in their way. In other words, it was a total trial run for Jurassic Park. We have no idea how HBO will extend this premise into an ongoing series, but the network does describe the show as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin,” so take from that what you will.

Westworld is executive produced by Jonah Nolan, Lisa Joy, and J.J. Abrams, a team that guarantees our attention for at least a few episodes. Get comfortable, sci-fi fans. Hopefully, this one will be worth the wait.