Scott Derrickson to helm Snowpiercer TV pilot, with Hamilton alum starring

TNT’s upcoming Snowpiercer TV series has tapped Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson to helm the pilot and cast a Hamilton star and Tony winner in a lead role. The series is based on Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 sci-fi movie starring Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt and Jamie Bell.

According to EW, showrunner Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) will pen the pilot and executive-produce alongside Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Deliver Us from Evil, Sinister). Also on board the speeding train as executive producer is Bong Joon Ho.

Taking place in a postapocalyptic world, Snowpiercer is set seven years (the original movie took place in 2031) after a new ice age has hit the Earth, which has now become a frozen solid wasteland. The series will center on the survivors who “inhabit a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe,” where the rich live at the front of the train while the poor are relegated to the tail end, igniting a class warfare.

Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs (who played the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson which nabbed him a Tony award) will topline the series as Layton Well. The character is described as “a prisoner barely surviving the harsh conditions in the tail end of the train. A quiet thinker who spends his days sniffing the industrial-waste-turned-drug Chronole and tending to his cage full of rats, Layton becomes a reluctant participant in a struggle that could upend life on the train.”

There you have it. What do you think of Scott Derrickson directing the Snowpiercer pilot and Daveed Diggs starring?

(via EW)