The cast and crew of Amazon Prime's upcoming Carnival Row appeared at San Diego Comic-Con this afternoon. They were there to provide a good look at the upcoming series, including two clips which introduce Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne's characters. The neo-noir fantasy is directed by Jon Amiel and is set to premiere on August 30th, exclusively on Amazon Prime. Carnival Row was initially announced back in 2015, which at the time had Guillermo del Toro on board as a co-writer.
As revealed at San Diego Comic-Con, Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Cara Delevingne (Suicide Squad) star in Carnival Row, a series set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological immigrant creatures whose exotic homelands were invaded by the empires of man. This growing population struggles to coexist with humans - forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. But even in darkness, hope lives, as a human detective, Rycroft Philostrate (Bloom), and a refugee faerie named Vignette Stonemoss (Delevingne) rekindle a dangerous affair despite an increasingly intolerant society. Vignette harbors a secret that endangers Philo's world during his most important case yet: a string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.
During the Comic-Con panel, Carnival Row executive producer Marc Guggenheim shed some more light on what the show is actually about. Though there's a decent amount of information about the show floating around, it's still very mysterious. As it turns out, there is a lot of things going on underneath the surface, which weighs on the overall story. He had this to say about it.
"It's about racism and feminism and sexism and classism and spiritualism. We kind of cover it all, and we look at all the different ways you can differentiate people and creatures in society. It's really rich, it's a rich world."
Carnival Row creator Travis Beacham spoke about some of the many layers and the great scope of the show's universe at the Comic-Con panel. He says, "It's kind of Dickensian. We're looking at the whole of the world, the whole of society, and how one wheel moves the other." It sounds like the series was not the easiest thing to put together when looking closely at the details. While the show was initially announced in 2015, it took a solid two years for everything to come together and by that time, Guillermo del Toro had exited the project.
Carnival Row's production spent nearly five months in pre-production phase before shooting actually started. The series was shot entirely in the Czech Republic throughout 108 days, starting in October 2017 and wrapping in February 2018. Carnival Row is based on Travis Beacham's feature script A Killing on Carnival Row and he and Orlando Bloom serve as executive producers, along with Marc Guggenheim, René Echevarria, and director Jon Amiel. You can take a look at the upcoming series below, thanks to the Amazon Prime Video YouTube channel.
