The second teaser for Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451 dropped today, and it features our first glimpse at the world of the film and its characters, with Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon in the leads.
Given that the first teaser was little more than a pile of books catching fire, anything is pretty much a step up from that. We’d regale you with a joke about the timeliness of this particular film, but this particular news cycle has us too depressed to really come up with anything solid, and all of the best gags will be taken by other writers. Anyways, yay movies!
Peep it:
So needless to say, this looks a bit cleaner than the Truffaut adaptation of the source material, which has annoyed middle schoolers ever since it hit home video in the ’80s. It’s got a pleasant cyberpunk vibe — that shot with Shannon’s face plastered across skyscrapers is a better evocation of the Blade Runner aesthetic than both Mute or the Ghost in the Shell remake could manage — and that cast immediately makes this film a must-see.
Given that the world was reminded of Jordan’s acting prowess in Black Panther this month, we’re even more excited to see him spar with Shannon. Bahrani’s a fantastic filmmaker — his 2008 release Goodbye Solo is utterly wonderful — and it’s great to see him work with such accomplished source material.
That won’t ever stop a film adaptation of Bradbury’s novel from feeling just a bit weird, even if it’s crafted by gentle hands, mainly because of how effective it is as an physical object while you’re reading it (I.E. that you’re experiencing the story through the very medium that the world within the novel has banned). It’s something that’s not often considered in the process of adaptation, especially with regards to this story, and it’ll surely be weird to stumble upon this movie in a drunken stupor late at night, passively absorbing it in between Szechuan Sauce-soaked bites of pink slime.
Anyways, Fahrenheit 451 arrives on HBO this May. We can’t wait.
Featured image via HBO.