Javier Bardem, currently starring in his first television series in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, is setting down the river for more TV work.
The actor has come aboard to star in a drama series re-imagining of Cape Fear, based on the film thrillers made by Universal Pictures. The project is set up at Apple TV+, which has greenlit it with a series order.
Nick Antosca, who created the true crime dramas A Friend of the Family and The Act, is writing and will showrun the series that will be executive produced by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Scorsese directed the 1991 version of the movie while Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment was one of the companies behind it. Bardem is also executive producing.
The 10-episode series is described as a tense, Hitchcockian thriller and an examination of America’s obsession with true crime in the 21st century. The broad strokes of the story and the characters remain the same as the film versions as happily married attorneys Amanda and Steve Bowden face a growing storm when Max Cady (to be played by Bardem), a notorious killer from their past, gets out of prison.
The new series is based on both the novel The Executioners, which inspired Universal’s 1962 adaptation directed by John Lee Thompson (Guns of Navarone) that starred Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, as well as the acclaimed 1991 remake directed by Scorsese. Mitchum played Cady in the 1962 while Robert De Niro played the vicious killer in Scorsese’s version. The character is one of screendom’s most iconic and meaty villain roles.
UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, and Amblin Television are the companies producing the series. Additional exec producers include Antosca as well as Alex Hedlund, his partner as production banner Eat The Cat; and Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey for Amblin Television. The series is being developed and produced through Antosca’s overall deal at UCP, where he’s been based since 2017.
Cape Fear represents the reteaming of some of Apple’s successful creative collaborators. The series marks the latest collaboration for Amblin Television and Apple TV+ following the acclaimed World War Two series Masters of the Air while Apple worked with Scorsese on the Oscar-winning period drama Killers of the Flower Moon. Bardem, meanwhile, is currently filming racing feature F1 for Apple Original Films.
The actor, who is a four time Academy Award nominee and a winner for his work in No Country For Old Men, is repped by WME and Goodman Jenow.
