Paramount+ and France Télévisions have unveiled the first look at their upcoming series, Zorro (working title), starring actor Jean Dujardin as the iconic masked vigilante, Deadline reports. The first image sees the Oscar-winner in the iconic costume, on a horse in the wilderness. Dujardin looks every bit the part and it’ll be really fascinating to see what he does with the fan favorite character.
While the tale of the iconic character has been told and retold in previous film adaptations like The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro. The upcoming eight-part series puts its own twist on the story, set in 1821, Zorror sees Don Diego de la Vega aka Zorro become the mayor of Los Angeles to help his beloved city flourish, as it faces financial trouble due to a local businessman. Things take a turn when Diego discovers his powers as mayor are not enough to fight injustice. He revives his alter-ego after 20 years but “struggles to balance his dual identity,” straining his personal life and marriage as his wife unaware of his secret. The premise sounds very appealing as it seems like Zorro will finally have some grounded relatable troubles and a fresh perspective.
The Team Behind the ‘Zorro’ Series
It’ll be interesting to see Dujardin’s take on an aging hero, the actor is well known for performances like 2011’s silent film The Artist, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Monuments Men. With a compelling actor like him taking on the role fans can look forward to Zorro’s irresistible charm and action prowess. He’s supported in the cast by Audrey Dana, Salvatore Ficarra, André Dussolier, Eric Elmosnino and Grégory Gadebois. The show is created by Benjamin Charbit and Noé Debré. The duo also share the writing credits with scribe Emmanuel Poulain-Arnaud. The series is directed by Jean-Baptiste Saurel and Emilie Noblet.
The dashing masked vigilante was first created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley and has seen several TV and film adaptations ever since. The character was most notably played by Antonio Banderas in The Legend of Zorro, however, the plans of bringing the character to the big screen since hasn’t yielded any result, though the character has been reimagined for TV several times. With the Paramount+ series fans will have another great take on the character.
Currently, Zorro has no release date but will debut later this year on Paramount+ before being broadcast on France Télévisions. You can check out the new image above and stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
via Collider