George Saunders’ dystopian short story Escape from Spiderhead has been adapted to the screen starring our very own Chris Hemsworth.
Netflix has released the first trailer for Spiderhead. Taken from George Saunders’ critically acclaimed 2013 collection of short stories, Tenth of December.
Set in the near future in a mysterious, futuristic penitentiary/research facility, Chris Hemsworth stars as a pharmaceutical genius using the prison as an experimental laboratory. The story follows Hemsworth’s Abnesti as he lures inmates with a promise of a reduced sentence if they partake in his drug-administered experiments. In what Abnesti calls a privilege for the inmates to partake in exploring the unknown, he uses drug tests, that deliver mood-altering effects via a remote-controlled, surgically implanted device called MobiPak™.
A montage in the trailer shows drug-induced prisoners enjoying everything from sex and euphoria to psychological breakdowns to the nth degree.
Filmed in Australia mid-way through the COVID pandemic, Spiderhead is Directed by Joseph Kosinski (best-known for Top Gun: Maverick, Tron: Legacy, and Oblivion), and co-stars Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollet, two inmates that form a strong bond, as they try to outsmart the system together.
In a nod to Saunders, you can catch one of the inmates in the trailer reading a copy of Tenth of December.
Spiderhead is set to premiere on Netflix on June 17.
Keen to read the full short? The New Yorker published it in 2010, and you can read it here.
