I Just Got Shivers Watching the Trailer for Patty Jenkins and Chris Pine’s Pre-Wonder Woman 1984 Murder Series

Patty Jenkins must have a great working relationship with Wonder Woman‘s Steve Trevor, actor Chris Pine—because she cast him in the limited series I Am the Night, and the trailer for it just delightfully unnerved me.

We knew Jenkins and Pine (who also executive produces) were at work on the project for a while, but the trailer above is our first real look at the Hollywood mystery series, which will run on TNT in January 2019. I Am the Night is an entry in the ever-growing popular true crime genre, “inspired by true events,” its characters somehow connected to the infamous 1947 Black Dahlia murder case.

According to Vanity Fair: 

The fact-based story revolves around a girl named Fauna Hodel (India Eisley) who finds out she’s adopted, then runs away from home, determined to find her birth parents. The trail leads her all the way to the sinister Dr. George Hodel, a suspect in the Black Dahlia murder (for the murderinos out there: the real-life Hodel’s son, Steve Hodel, is a Los Angeles detective who has also accused his father of possibly being the Zodiac Killer and committing numerous other murders. Very chill, nothing to see here!).

There’s so much going on here—from fraught racial dynamics to outlandish unsettling parties to Chris Pine’s steely blue-eyed gaze to incredible costumes to menacing scenes that make me think I won’t be able to watch this one alone. Pine will play “former Marine-turned-hack reporter/paparazzo” Jay Singletary, who becomes bound up in investigating Fauna’s story and may be in as much danger as she is. The aesthetics are on-point and on the whole, this already looks really good?

At this point, I would follow Jenkins and Pine into battle with complete trust, and it’s exciting to see them branch off from Wonder Woman in such a noirish direction. I got chills at the “Some stories don’t want to be told. Some stories will eat you alive” voiceover.

It feels sometimes like everything in media is murder-centric lately but at least this is super-stylish murder starring Jenkins’ directorial flair and Pine’s jawline and artful stubble. What do you think of the trailer?

(via Vanity Fair, image: TNT)

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Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

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