Amazon Prime Unveils 2018 Original Program Slate & Premiere Dates

Amazon Studios

Amazon Prime has released its 2018 slate of original series and, where possible, premiere dates, kicking off with the New Year’s Day show Cord and Tish’s Rose Parade Special.

Here are the Amazon shows set to launch in 2018, with synopsis provided by the streaming service:

Cord and Tish’s Rose Parade Special(special) – Streams live on January 1, 2018, 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET
Cord Hosenbeck and Tish Cattigan are set to host the 2018 Rose Parade, streaming live on Amazon Prime Video. Cord Hosenbeck and Tish Cattigan are no strangers to the Rose Bowl, having covered the event for the past 25 years. However, their move this year to Amazon from a local station will allow their fans from around the world to stream the event live.

Britannia (one-hour) – Coming January 2018
Britannia is written by the multi-award winning Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, Spectre) and stars Kelly Reilly (True Detective, Sherlock Holmes), David Morrissey (The Walking Dead, The Hollow Crown) and Zoë Wanamaker (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, My Family). Filmed completely abroad, Britannia is set in 43AD as the Roman Imperial Army, determined and terrified in equal measure, returns to crush the Celtic heart of Britannia, a mysterious land ruled by wild warrior women and powerful Druids who can channel the powerful forces of the underworld.

Absentia (one-hour) – Coming February 2018
Starring and executive produced by Castle’s Stana Katic, Absentia centers on FBI agent Emily Byrne (Katic). While hunting one of Boston’s most notorious serial killers, Agent Byrne disappears without a trace and is declared dead. Six years later, Emily is found in a cabin in the woods, barely alive, and with no memory of the years she was missing. Returning home to learn her husband has remarried and her son is being raised by another woman, she soon finds herself implicated in a new series of murders.

Absentia also stars Patrick Heusinger (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) as Emily’s husband and fellow FBI agent Nick who struggles with the guilt that he stopped looking for Emily, and his feelings for her that have resurfaced—especially now that he’s married to another woman. Nick is now tasked with the unthinkable: having to bring Emily into custody as the prime suspect in a string of shocking new murders.

GRAND PRIX Driver (unscripted) – Coming February 2018
The series follows the McLaren team, the second oldest team in Formula 1 founded in 1963, as they prepare to challenge for the 2017 World Championship, with new Executive Director and former racer Zak Brown leading the famed racing organization. Featuring exclusive access from the McLaren team to the technically competitive and secretive world of racing, the series will let Prime members embed with the team and its drivers: rookie Stoffel Vandoorne and former double world champion Fernando Alonso.

Sneaky PeteS2 (one-hour) – Coming 2018
On the verge of starting fresh, Marius is abruptly dragged back into the role of Pete Murphy when two thugs–believing he’s Pete–threaten to kill the Bernhardts if he doesn’t take them to Pete’s estranged mother, Maggie, and the millions she stole from their mysterious employer. Now Marius must tread a dangerous line to find the elusive Maggie, protect the family–who are still reeling from the death and dealings of the past week–and keep up the Pete con, all while finagling a way to ditch the thugs and keep the money for himself.

Sneaky Pete stars Giovanni Ribisi as Marius/Pete, Marin Ireland as Julia Bowman, Shane McRae as Taylor Bowman, Libe Barer as Carly Bowman, Michael Drayer as Eddie Josipovic, Peter Gerety as Otto Bernhardt and Margo Martindale as Audrey Bernhardt. The series was created by Bryan Cranston and David Shore, with Graham Yost, Bryan Cranston, James Degus, Michael Dinner, Fred Golan and Seth Gordon executive producing.

Untitled Hannah Grant Tour de France series (unscripted) – Coming 2018
The series, inspired by Hannah Grant’s book The Grand Tour, goes behind the scenes at this race-within-a-race, showcasing what it takes to maintain Grant’s Michelin star-level cooking standards balanced with the “high octane” dietary needs of professional athletes. During the Tour de France, one of the world’s most physically demanding sporting events, the racing team and Grant’s entire operation will move daily, starting in Dusseldorf, Germany and ending in Paris for the famous ride through city streets and the finish line at the Champs-Élysées. The series will offer unprecedented behind-the scenes access to one of the largest annual sporting events on the planet that billions around the world watch, featuring a side of the race, the athletes and their support team that many don’t even know exists. The series is executive produced by Hannah Grant and Christof Bove (Showrunners, Indictment). The series is produced by Junto Entertainment.

Untitled University of Michigan Football series (unscripted) – Coming 2018
The series will give Prime members unprecedented access to the winningest program in college football, chronicling Michigan’s 2017 season. The cameras will follow Coach Jim Harbaugh, his assistant coaches, the student athletes and their support system on and off the field, giving viewers an inside look at the team, game, practice, life in Ann Arbor, and everything in between.

Bosch S4 (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Synopsis to come.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (one-hour) – Coming 2018
The epic new series, starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Parts 1 and 2, In Darkness) as English headmistress Mrs Hester Appleyard, is a re-imagining of Joan Lindsay’s timeless Australian novel. In addition to Dormer, the series stars Lola Bessis (Swim Little Fish Swim) as Mademoiselle Dianne de Poiters, Lily Sullivan (Camp, Jungle) as Miranda Reid, Madeleine Madden (Tomorrow When The War Began, High Life) as Marion Quade, Samara Weaving (Monster Trucks, The Babysitter) as Irma Leopold, Ruby Rees (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) as Edith Horton and Inez Curro as Sara Waybourne.

Picnic at Hanging Rock will plunge viewers into the mysterious disappearances of three schoolgirls and one teacher on Valentine’s Day 1900, taking the audience on a new journey into the revered Australian novel.

King Lear (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Set in the fictional present, King Lear sets Anthony Hopkins (Thor, Red Dragon) as the eponymous ruler, presiding over a totalitarian military dictatorship in England. Emma Thompson (Love Actually, Nanny McPhee) stars as his eldest daughter Goneril. Also in starring is Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves, War Horse) as middle daughter Regan, and Florence Pugh (The Falling, Lady MacBeth) will play Cordelia, the youngest of Lear’s children. Jim Broadbent (Gangs of New York, Moulin Rouge) is the Earl of Gloucester, Andrew Scott (Spectre, Saving Private Ryan) his loyal son Edgar and John Macmillan (The Dark Knight Rises, Hanna) his illegitimate offspring Edmund. Further completing the cast is Jim Carter (Downtown Abbey, The Golden Compass), Christopher Eccleston (The Leftovers, GI Joe), Tobias Menzies (Outlanders, Casino Royale), Anthony Calf (Riviera) and Karl Johnson (Rome, Hot Fuzz).

All Blacks(unscripted) – Coming 2018
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has granted unprecedented access to Amazon Prime Video to follow the All Blacks across 2017, including the recent DHL New Zealand Lions Series. The series will provide a look inside the world of the players, coaches and the support team that sits behind them through the season, on and off the field.

The series is slated to be produced by Mother Media Group in conjunction with Warner Brothers New Zealand, executive producers Eden Gaha (The Biggest Loser), Greg Heathcote (Come Dine With Me) and Bailey Mackey (Hunt for the Wilderpeople).

A Very English Scandal (one-hour) – Coming 2018
A Very English Scandal is the shocking true story of the first British politician to stand trial for conspiracy and incitement to murder. Hugh Grant is to return to British television screens for the first time since the early 1990s as the disgraced MP Jeremy Thorpe, who in 1979 was tried but acquitted of conspiring to murder his ex-lover Norman Scott, played by Ben Whishaw.

It is the late 1960s, homosexuality has only just been decriminalized and Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal party and the youngest leader of any British political party in a hundred years, has a secret he’s desperate to hide. As long as his ex-lover Norman Scott is around, Thorpe’s brilliant career is at risk.

Goliath S2 (one-hour) – Coming 2018
In Goliath Season Two, Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton) returns to criminal defense, taking on a grisly double murder case in Venice. His client is a 16-year-old boy — and Billy’s damn sure he’s innocent. Billy and his team fervently build their case in the seedy underworld of Los Angeles, squaring off with a dirty cop, tight-lipped gangbangers, and a prosecutor with a point to prove. As the murders’ true culprits come to light, the implications reach as far as the mayoral race — and the city’s preeminent billionaire developer.

This season, Morris Chestnut (The Best Man, Think Like a Man) will play Chief Deputy District Attorney Hakeem Rashad, who was on the losing side of Billy’s (Billy Bob Thornton) last criminal case and has a bitter, old grudge against him. Ana De la Reguera (Narcos, Nacho Libre) will be playing Marisol Silva, a city councilwoman from the seamier side of Venice, in the race to be the first Latina woman mayor of Los Angeles. Also, Mark Duplass (Togetherness, Room 104) will play Tom Wyatt, a successful Los Angeles developer who wants to give the city a distinct skyline.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Amazon will debut Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, from Paramount Television and Skydance Television, next year on Amazon Prime Video. The series is a reinvention with a modern sensibility of the famed and lauded Tom Clancy hero. It centers on Jack Ryan, an up-and-coming CIA analyst thrust into a dangerous field assignment for the first time. The one-hour, eight-episode dramatic series stars John Krasinski as Jack Ryan, as well as Wendell Pierce (The Wire) as James Greer and Abbie Cornish as Cathy Mueller. It is executive produced by Carlton Cuse who also serves as the showrunner, Krasinski, Academy Award nominated director Morten Tyldum who also directed the pilot, Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, and Graham Roland, who wrote the pilot based on a story he and Cuse developed. Executive producing Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan with Bay at Platinum Dunes are Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, as well as Skydance’s David Ellison and Dana Goldberg, and Marcy Ross, along with Mace Neufeld and co-executive producer Lindsey Springer.

The Man in the High Castle S3(one-hour) – Coming 2018
Season three of the Emmy award-winning The Man in the High Castle finds Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) grappling with her destiny after seeking safety in the Neutral Zone. Realizing that their fates are intertwined, she works with Trade Minister Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) to interpret the mystery of the last remaining films. Meanwhile, as tensions between the Reich and the Empire continue to rise, Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank) returns from Berlin and is sent on a diplomatic mission to San Francisco, where he and Juliana reunite and come to a turning point in their relationship. Also in the new season, Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith (Rufus Sewell) finds himself celebrated by Nazi high society, but political forces are closing in as North American Reischsmarschall Lincoln Rockwell, and J. Edgar Hoover plot against him. Helen (Chelah Horsdal) takes drastic action to protect her family while they struggle with the aftermath of Thomas’ death, and Smith also learns of a shocking and ambitious new Nazi program that has personal and global ramifications

Jason O’Mara (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) joins the cast as a series regular this season. O’Mara plays Wyatt Price who fled the war in Europe and whose family immigrated to New York from Ireland as refugees.

Untitled Manchester City Football series (unscripted) – Coming 2018
The series will follow the team’s legendary coach, Pep Guardiola and the weekly stories that unfold within the lives of the players. It chronicles Manchester City’s 2017/18 season.

Patriot S2 (one-hour) – Coming 2018
As John (Michael Dorman) works to salvage a deteriorating covert mission in order to rescue Edward (Michael Chernus), Tom (Terry O’Quinn) orders a failsafe: to assassinate the pro-nuclear Iranian presidential candidate in a heavily-guarded Paris compound.

Vanity Fair (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Gwyneth Hughes’ adaptation of Thackeray’s literary classic is set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, and follows modern heroine Becky Sharp, played by Olivia Cooke, as she attempts to claw her way out of poverty and scale the heights of English Society. Her story of “villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing”, takes her all the way to the court of King George IV, via the Battle of Waterloo, breaking hearts and losing fortunes as she goes.

The Untitled Alan Yang/ Matt Hubbard Project – Coming 2018
The Untitled Alan Yang / Matt Hubbard Project is being created by an award-winning team. Yang won an Emmy Award for writing the Netflix comedy series Master of None, which he co-created. He was also nominated for an Emmy while working on the NBC series Parks and Recreation. Hubbard won two Emmys for writing and co-executive-producing 30 Rock. His credits also include Parks and Recreation and NBC’s Superstore. Fred Armisen has been nominated for nine Emmys over the course of his career, which has included Portlandia, Documentary Now! and Saturday Night Live. Maya Rudolph has been nominated for an Emmy Award for Saturday Night Live and will soon be heard in the animated series Big Mouth, as well as seen in Ben Falcone’s upcoming comedy Life of the Party.

Informer (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Informer will star Paddy Considine (Peaky Blinders, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher), Bel Powley (The Diary Of A Teenage Girl) and newcomer Nabhaan Rizwan, with Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife, Wolf Hall), Sharon D. Clarke (Holby City, Unforgotten), Sunetra Sarker (Safe House, Broadchurch), and Roger Jean Nsengiyumva (Chasing Shadows, Sixteen). Informer is a sophisticated, character-driven thriller that follows Raza (Nabhaan Rizwan), a young, second generation Pakistani man born and raised in East London. After a series of unfortunate events not coincidentally tied to the color of his skin, Raza is coerced into becoming counter-terrorist officer Gabe’s newest undercover informer. Gabe (Paddy Considine), who has a past he is unwilling to expose, is joined by Holly (Bel Powley), his new and ambitious partner whose endless curiosity becomes threatening to him. As Raza falls deeper into a complex web of bad guys and the clock ticks for Paddy and Holly as the threat to London grows, the stakes for all three will have audiences at the edge of their seat.

Catastrophe S4 (half-hour) – Coming 2018
Synopsis to come.

The Romanoffs (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Amazon Prime Original The Romanoffs is created, written, directed and executive produced by nine-time Emmy award winner Matthew Weiner (Mad Men). The series is a one-hour contemporary anthology series set around the globe featuring separate stories about people who believe themselves to be descendants of the Russian royal family. Weiner is set to direct all episodes of the series, also executive produced and written by Semi Chellas (Mad Men). Kriss Turner Towner (The Bernie Mac Show), Blake McCormick (Mad Men), and Kathy Ciric (Z: The Beginning of Everything) co-executive produce.

Recently announced stars slated to join The Romanoffs include Diane Lane, Aaron Eckhart, Corey Stoll, Andrew Rannells, Mike Doyle, JJ Feild, Janet Montgomery, Paul Reiser, Isabelle Huppert, Marthe Keller, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, Jack Huston, and Amanda Peet.

Transparent S5 (half-hour) – Coming 2018
Synopsis to come.

The Gymkhana Files (unscripted) – Coming 2018
The Gymkhana Files will take viewers behind the scenes of this incredible production, including everything from concept development to vehicle builds and trick practice, and will follow Ken Block and the Hoonigan Media Machine team as they travel around the world to compete in the FIA World Rally X Championship and embark on other motoring adventures. The series also will feature untold stories, unseen footage and spectacular mishaps from the previous 9 films. The series will culminate with the world premiere of the Gymkhana 10 short-form video in the last episode – and Amazon Video will be the exclusive worldwide home of Gymkhana 10 for the first 10 days of release.

The Grand Tour S3 (unscripted) – Coming 2018
Synopsis to come.

White Dragon (one-hour) – Coming 2018
John Simm stars as Professor Jonah Mulray who receives a devastating international phone call about the death of his wife, Megan (Dervla Kirwan), who has been working in Hong Kong. He’s poleaxed with grief, but has to galvanise himself to board a plane for Asia to identify his beloved wife’s body. Megan has died in a car accident on the beautiful mountain roads at the top of Tai Po overlooking Hong Kong, and although a notorious black-spot, Jonah feels he must unravel the circumstances of her death following an emotional voicemail left by his wife just seconds before her death. With the help of Sally Porter (Emilia Fox) from the British Consulate, Jonah is taken to the mortuary and in the saddest of surroundings he realises his wife has gone forever.

Homecoming (one-hour) – Coming 2018
Homecoming is a half-hour drama series adaptation of the acclaimed 2016 Gimlet Media podcast of the same name from Amazon Studios, Universal Cable Productions (UCP), Anonymous Content, and Gimlet Media. Oscar-winner Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) stars in the series, with Emmy-nominated Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail executive producing and directing the series through his production company Esmail Corp as part of his overall deal with UCP. Executive Producers include Mr. Robot’s Chad Hamilton of Anonymous Content; Eli Horowitz (The Silent History) and Micah Bloomberg (Creative Control), creators of the podcast who will also write the series; Chris Giliberti (Alex Inc.), Alex Blumberg (Alex, Inc.), and Matt Lieber (Alex, Inc.) of Gimlet Media. Roberts also serves as Executive Producer through her production company RedOm along with partners Lisa Gillan and Marisa Gill.

Those programs join Amazon series with previously announced premiere dates:

Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams(one-hour) – Premieres on January 12, 2018
Based on various writings from author Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams consists of ten standalone episodes, each set in a different and unique world–some which lay in the far reaches of the universe and time, and others which are much closer to home. From five to 5000 years in the future, each compelling tale will both illustrate Philip K. Dick’s prophetic vision and celebrate the enduring appeal of the prized sci-fi novelist’s work.

The series features an all-star cast, including Steve Buscemi, Bryan Cranston, Greg Kinnear, Maura Tierney, Janelle Monáe, Mireille Enos, Anna Paquin, Terrence Howard, Timothy Spall, Liam Cunningham, Richard Madden, Holiday Grainger, Mel Rodriguez, Vera Farmiga, Jack Reynor, Essie Davis, Benedict Wong, Geraldine Chaplin, among many others. Each episode has been adapted by leading American and British writers and directors.

Mozart in the Jungle S4 (half-hour) – Coming February 16, 2018
New melodies arise as Rodrigo (Gael García Bernal) and Hailey (Lola Kirke) take their relationship public. Hailey struggles to prove herself as a conductor, while Rodrigo fights to keep his inspiration alive. Thomas (Malcolm McDowell) joins a start-up orchestra in Brooklyn that challenges Gloria (Bernadette Peters).

The Tick S1B (half-hour) – Coming February 23, 2018
In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an accountant with mental health issues and zero powers comes to realize his city is owned by a global super villain long-thought dead. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero. Together, they launch into an adventure brimming with crazed archvillains, blood-soaked vigilantes, mad science, and superhuman freakery.

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