Home TV News Amazon Prime UK Picks Up ‘Alex Rider’ Series With June Premiere Date & New Trailer

Amazon Prime UK Picks Up ‘Alex Rider’ Series With June Premiere Date & New Trailer

by Dave Elliott

The Alex Rider series has finally found a home, as Amazon Prime UK announces the have picked up the eight-episode series to premiere in June 2020.

Based on Point Blanc, the second novel in the franchise, the series stars Otto Farrant as Alex Rider, a London based teenager who has unknowingly been trained since childhood for the dangerous world of espionage. Pressured to help investigate his uncle’s death, and how it connects to the assassination of two high-profile billionaires, Alex reluctantly assumes a new identity and goes undercover in a remote boarding school called Point Blanc. Isolated far above the snowline in the French Alps, Point Blanc claims to set the troubled teenage children of the ultra-rich back onto the right track. As Alex digs deeper, he discovers the students are in fact the subjects of a disturbing plan which Alex will have to risk his life to stop.

“We are thrilled to bring our Prime members this cinematic drama based on one of literatures most loved characters,” commented Chris Bird, Head of Content, EU. “Fans of the book franchise will be delighted to hear that this new series is created by Alex Rider author Anthony Horowitz, alongside outstanding talent both in front and behind the camera. We know that there is huge anticipation for this TV series imagining of an iconic book franchise, so we’re delighted to have secured this show exclusively for Prime members in the UK.”

In addition to Farrant, Alex Rider stars Stephen Dillane (aka Stannis Baratheon to GoT fans) as Alan Blunt, commander of The Department, a secret underworld offshoot of MI6, Vicky McClure (‘Line Of Duty’, ‘This Is England’) as Mrs. Jones, Blunt’s second in command, Brenock O’Connor (‘Game Of Thrones’) as Rider’s best friend Tom Harris, Ronke Adékoluejo (‘Christopher Robin’, ‘Doctor Who’) as Jack Starbright, Ace Bhattii as Crawley, Marli Siu as Kyra and Andrew Buchan as Ian Rider.

The series had a slightly unusual journey to the screen, as it was originally in development with ITV, but they walked away and Sony swooped in to continue developing the show with Eleventh Hour, who optioned the rights. Rather than wait for a broadcaster to get on-board, they decided to make the entire first season, then look for someone to air it afterwards.

BAFTA-winning writer Guy Burt (‘The Borgias’, ‘The Bletchley Circle’) penned the script, based on Anthony Horowitz’s hugely popular young adult novels. Moving forward, the plan is to have each season of the show based around one novel in the bestselling series, starting with ‘Point Blanc’, the second book. This is to avoid covering the same ground as the (less than successful) 2006 movie ‘Stormbreaker’, which followed the first novel, although the series does use elements of Alex’s origins from the Stormbreaker novel to tie things together.

Anthony Horowitz, the author of the franchise, serves as an Executive Producer alongside Jill Green, Eve Gutierrez, series writer Guy Burt, and Andreas Prochaska, who also co-directed the series with Christopher Smith.

“I was thrilled to hear that Prime Video will introduce the Alex Rider TV series to fans,” adds franchise author Anthony Horowitz. “This is such a huge, popular platform and feels like a natural home for the series. I hope that this is the start of a long creative partnership… with another twelve books ready to go!”

Alex Rider‘ Season 1 premieres Thursday, 4th June 2020 on Amazon Prime UK. If you want to know more about the series, you can watch the MCM Comic-Con panel with the cast and crew from last year here.

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