Nocturne trailer: Apple TV sets a release date and cast — Liev Schreiber hunts Stephen Graham's serial killer
Apple's prestige-thriller machine just aimed two of TV's heaviest hitters at each other — and scheduled the finale for Christmas Day, which tells you everything about the vibe.
Apple TV has released the trailer for Nocturne and locked its rollout: October 30, two episodes up front, then weekly through December 25. Yes — a serial-killer drama whose season finale drops on Christmas morning. Somebody at Apple has a sense of humor, or at least a sense of counterprogramming.
The casting is the pitch. Liev Schreiber plays Jonah Lynn, an ex-soldier turned Philadelphia homicide detective who moves his family to a small western-Pennsylvania town for a quieter life — a plan that survives roughly one episode, because Stephen Graham is in this show. Graham plays Jurek Walter, described in Apple's own materials as "diabolically cunning," and the trailer leans entirely into the two men circling each other while Zazie Beetz's FBI agent Saga Bauer works the case from the outside.
Graham is coming off Adolescence, the Netflix drama that swept awards season and re-certified him as the most unnerving presence on television. Handing him a cell, a stare, and a detective's family to menace is not subtle. It is correct.
The Swedish paperwork
Nocturne is an Americanization of Lars Kepler's Joona Linna novels — specifically The Sandman and Lazarus, the entries built around Jurek Walter, the franchise's Hannibal-tier nemesis. The adaptation math is visible from space: Swedish detective Joona Linna becomes Jonah Lynn, Stockholm becomes Pennsylvania, and Saga Bauer keeps her name outright. "Lars Kepler" is itself a pseudonym for a married Swedish writing duo, who executive produce — so the source material signed off on the relocation.
The rest of the operation:
- Rowan Joffé (28 Weeks Later) created and wrote the adaptation, with John Hlavin (The Shield) as showrunner
- Tim Van Patten — the Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire veteran — directs the first two episodes
- The bench runs deep: Bill Camp, Rory Culkin, Chrissy Metz, Poorna Jagannathan, and Gary Carr
- Schreiber and Beetz both executive produce, and A+E Studios makes it with Range Studios
Ten weeks of dread, on a schedule
For Apple, this slots into the lane Slow Horses and Presumed Innocent built: adult, star-driven, weekly. Ten episodes, each landing Friday, walking viewers from Halloween eve straight into the holidays with a show about a man who collects other people's loved ones. The two-episode premiere hits October 30; the finale, again, is Apple's Christmas gift.
Previously we wrote: Why Lee Child vetoed Jack Reacher 3: he liked Tom Cruise, made money off him — and killed the third film anyway
