Apple's 'Wool' Adds Tim Robbins To Dystopian Series From 'Justified' Showrunner

Apple TV+ continues to lure more talent, with Tim Robbins signing on to co-star opposite Rebecca Ferguson in the dystopian drama Wool, based on the first installment in Hugh Howey's post-apocalyptic sci-fi book series, Silo.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wool "is set in a ruined and toxic future where a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them."

Robbins will play Bernard, the community's IT head, while Ferguson will play Juliette, "an independent and hardworking engineer." Ferguson was already confirmed to star back in May when Wool received a direct-to-series order of 10 episodes.

Graham Yost, who developed Justified for FX, will serve as showrunner here. Morten Tyldum, the Oscar-nominated helmer of The Imitation Game and Apple's Defending Jacob, will direct.

Interestingly, THR mentions that AMC Studios is producing Wool, "marking a key off-network sale for the studio arm of the basic cable network and part of its push to increase revenues by becoming a content supplier to third-party outlets." AMC Networks already has its own streaming service (at this point, who doesn't) but last month, it finally settled the long-shambling Walking Dead lawsuit that filmmaker Frank Darabont had brought against it — to the tune of $200 million, no less.

It's somewhat strange to hear that AMC is now outsourcing shows to other streamers instead of putting them on AMC+ or the AMC TV channel. Maybe the money they owe Darabont is a factor, or maybe $200 million is a drop in the bucket for them and this is all just part of their normal business strategy.

Whatever the case, Robbins won an Academy Award for Mystic River, and though he wasn't nominated for The Shawshank Redemption (which Darabont directed), we all know that is one of the greatest movies of all time. He was last seen onscreen in Dark Waters and in the second and final season of Hulu's ill-fated Castle Rock.

Ferguson also joined the Stephen King screen multiverse in Doctor Sleep, and she's kept busy the last few years with other notable projects like Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Reminiscence (out this week), and Denis Villeneuve's upcoming Dune. In Wool, she'll be starring in an adaptation of a novel that started out as a short story from Howey, a self-published Kindle author who is now a bestselling writer, not to mention an executive producer for this new Apple series.

We'll let you know more details about Wool as they develop.