It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Penny Dreadful, the horror series that Skyfall** duo Sam Mendes and John Logan were planning to produce for US cable network Showtime. But with Showtime boss David Nevins taking the stage at the Television Critics Association press tour, more details have emerged, including word that Eva Green and Josh Hartnett have signed on to play the leads.
While we have the basic storyline – some of literature’s most iconic characters get wrapped up in a psychosexual horror tale in Victorian London – little has been released about the people we’ll see in it. Now we know, however, that Green will be the heroine, Vanessa Ives, while Hartnett will be “fake cowboy” Ethan Chandler. "We're trying to do stuff that's got depth and psychology and I find Penny Dreadful to be a totally fascinating subject," Nevins told the assembled press.
Logan has written the scripts for the show and The Orphanage’s Juan Antonio Bayona will direct the first two episodes. It’s set to start shooting in London this autumn for a 2014 airdate.
In related Showtime news, the channel has also picked up a pilot called The Affair, which is “an intense and intimate exploration of two marriages and an affair that disrupts them – with all of the complex consequences that result." That one will star Ruth Wilson and Dominic West in the story of a New York teacher who thinks his life is happily settled until he meets a woman he believes could be his soulmate. Given what we know about Alice from the most recent series of Luther, he might want to worry about that...