'Skyfall' duo and 007 alumni team up for new TV series

Director Sam Mendes and screenwriter John Logan, who worked together on 'Skyfall' and are in the pre-production stages for Bond 24, are continuing their partnership on a new television drama series.

They will be joined by Bond girl Eva Green. Famous for her international breakthrough role as Vesper Lynd in 2006's 'Casino Royale', Green will play the central leading female role in the gothic television drama.

Penny Dreadful is set in London in 1891 and focuses on supernatural characters — Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — who link up with Eva’s character Vanessa Ives.

Logan said that because so much of the series is built around a female protagonist and set against a perception of repression in Victorian society, ‘we have a fair amount of frank sex’.
‘To be sexually empowered was outlaw behaviour in Victorian England,’ he added.

Josh Hartnett plays Ethan Edwards — the sole American in the series, who is named after John Wayne’s character in The Searchers. ‘He’s been touring with a Wild West show but quickly leaves that and becomes embroiled with Vanessa and the other characters,’ Logan said.

Shooting begins in October at locations in the UK. US premium cable network Showtime will air it Stateside.

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