Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern Cast in StudioCanal’s ‘War of the Worlds’ Series

Hereditary star Gabriel Byrne and Downton Abbey actress Elizabeth McGovern will head the ensemble cast of War of the Worlds, a new television re-imagining of the H.G. Wells sci-fi classic, created by veteran British writer Howard Overman (Misfits, Atlantis).

Lea Drucker (Le Bureau des legendes), Natasha Little (Silent Witness), Daisy Edgar Jones (Cold Feet), Stephane Caillard (Genius), Adel Bencherif (The Prophet) and Guillaume Gouix (The Returned) have also signed on to star in the eight-part series, which Urban Myth Films is producing. Shooting on the series has already begun in the U.K. and France. Gilles Coulier (De Dag) and Richard Clark (Versailles) are directing.

French mini-major StudioCanal, a shareholder of Urban Myth Films, set up the financing for the series, together with French pay-TV group Canal Plus and Fox Networks Group Europe & Africa.

Stuart Ford’s AGC Television has come on board to co-finance the series and distribute the show in select territories. AGC will handle War of the Worlds in North America and co-distribute with StudioCanal in Latin America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. Fox Network Group Content Distribution will handling sales in Europe and Africa, excluding French-speaking territories.

The BBC is currently in postproduction on its own version of War of the Worlds, a miniseries adaptation set in Edwardian England and starring Greg Kinnear, Rafe Spall and Eleanor Tomlinson.

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