Amazon has finally unveiled the first official trailer for Barry Jenkins’ (Moonlight) 10-episode limited series, The Underground Railroad. The trailer reveals a black woman fleeing from what one can only presume to be a dark place. On her road to freedom, she comes across an underground tunnel— assumed to be a pathway for those who are on the run and never wish to return. The trailer clearly depicts that this young woman is the reason for the wild sequence of events that unfold in the trailer.
Thuso Mbedu plays Cora in The Underground Railroad
The limited series chronicles young Cora’s (Thuso Mbedu, Shuga) journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South of the union. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. The Underground Railroad is an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The novel delineates an underground railroad in the 19th Century which enslaved African-Americans used to flee from the South, in search of freedom. The historical fiction was announced to be adapted into a limited series on September 16, 2016.
The 10-episode Amazon Prime series is executive produced by Barry Jenkins, Brad Pitt, Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. The Underground Railroad also stars Chase W. Dillon (First Wives Club), Joel Edgerton (The King), Aaron Pierre (Old), and William Jackson Harper (Midsommar) among others.
The onscreen adaptation of African-Americans’ harrowing journey in the 19th Century to escape from the South to free states will be an amazing series to beckon with. Jenkins’ attempt to capture this experience and how presupposed secret routes aided slaves’ path to liberation will show if the Moonlight director can replicate his genius in this historical fiction drama.
The 10-episode period drama is set to be released on Amazon Prime Video on May 14, 2021.
