HAMILTON Star Daveed Diggs to Lead TNT's SNOWPIERCER Remake

Turner's TNT has cast Daveed Diggs, who earned a Tony for the Broadway hit HAMILTON, to star in the network's drama pilot SNOWPIERCER, which will be directed by Doctor Strange helmer Scott Derrickson. Derrickson will also serve as an executive producer on the series. Based on the acclaimed movie of the same name, the hour-long drama pilot is a co-production of Tomorrow Studios and Turner's Studio T. Snowpiercer is executive-produced by writer-showrunner Josh Friedman (Avatar 4, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles); Tomorrow Studios' Marty Adelstein (Aquarius, Prison Break, Teen Wolf) and Becky Clements (Good Behavior, Aquarius, Last Man Standing); and the original film's Bong Joon Ho, Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae-hun and Dooho Choi, along with CJ Entertainment.

Snowpiercer is a futuristic thriller set seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, and the remnants of humanity inhabit a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe. Class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival are questioned in this riveting television adaptation.

Diggs will star as Layton Well, a prisoner barely surviving the harsh conditions in the tail end of the train. A quiet thinker who spends his days sniffing the industrial-waste-turned-drug Chronole and tending to his cage full of rats, Layton becomes a reluctant participant in a struggle that could upend life on the train.

Diggs originated the role of Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson in the groundbreaking Broadway musical Hamilton, for which he earned not only a Tony but also a Grammy®. He has also appeared in such television series as The Get Down and Black-ish. In 2010, he teamed up with longtime friends Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson to form the experimental hip-hop/rap trio clipping. Their newest album, the critically acclaimed Splendor & Misery, debuted in September and earned a Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Derrickson scored critical and box office success last year with the Marvel blockbuster Doctor Strange, which he both co-wrote and directed. Throughout his career, Derrickson has made his mark with memorable genre films including his breakout horror hit The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), the remake of the classic Science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), the sleeper horror hit Sinister (2012) and Deliver Us from Evil (2014).

Snowpiercer is part of an ever-expanding roster of TNT pilots designed to continue the network's programming evolution that began last year with the summer hit Animal Kingdom. The pilot marks TNT's second project with Tomorrow Studios, which also produces the network's acclaimed new drama Good Behavior, starring Michelle Dockery. TNT's development slate also includes pilots for The Deep Mad Dark, a thriller about the complexities of friendship, from executive producers John Wells and Megan Martin, and Deadlier Than the Male (Working Title), a challenging and morally complex thriller about three damaged people trying to start over, from executive producers Bruna Papandrea, Harriet Warner and Casey Haver.

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Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski