'Raised By Wolves' Trailer: Ridley Scott's HBO Max Series Pits Zealots Against Androids

It's sort of hard to believe, but legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Gladiator, Alien) has never directed an American television show – until now.

Scott is behind the camera for the first two episodes of Raised by Wolves, a new HBO Max series which explores some concepts that Scott has been fascinated by throughout his entire career. Check out the newest trailer below, which gives us even more context for the central conflict that takes place in the show's far-flung future.

I believe this is the first time we're hearing that these children are being raised as atheists as a way to counteract the religious beliefs which seemingly resulted in the destruction of a planet's civilization. Scott has long been interested in ideas of belief and zealotry – especially when it's applied to the primal search for the origin stories of different species and cultures. Zealotry rears its head again in this show in the form of humans who can't stand to let human children be raised by androids.

The filmmaker has also been taken with the notion of what humanity means, and whether those traits can be attained by non-human creations. (One example: his exploration of Michael Fassbender's David in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant). And here, it seems like Scott is once again imbuing these androids with visceral emotions and diving into what kinds of consequences that may have.

Meanwhile, this show is also touching on some familiar territory for series writer/creator Aaron Guzikowski, who dissected the idea of how far a parent would go for their child in his screenplay for the 2013 film Prisoners. Here, an android just so happens to be the parent – and instead of beating the shit out of Paul Dano like Hugh Jackman's Prisoners character does, Raised By Wolves protagonist Amanda Collin goes on a violent rampage of her own to get the kids back after they're taken by the humans in this story. Abubakar Salim, Winta McGrath, Niamh Algar, Jordan Loughran, Matias Varela, Felix Jamieson, Ethan Hazzard, Aasiya Shah, Ivy Wong, and Travis Fimmel round out the cast.

The show follows "two androids tasked with raising human children on a mysterious virgin planet. As the burgeoning colony of humans threatens to be torn apart by religious differences, the androids learn that controlling the beliefs of humans is a treacherous and difficult task."

Raised By Wolves premieres on HBO Max on September 3, 2020.