Syfy and Alcon TV have put together the finalized cast for the upcoming ten episode space drama The Expanse, which is part of the networks larger plan to get back to its roots in 2015 as they recently noted that such material has been a lot more accessible for audiences and they’re quietly admitting their mistakes in moving away from it in the past decade. The series has added several new actors with Dominique Tipper (Vampire Academy), Cas Anvar (Olympus), and Wes Chatham (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay) as series regulars while Jonathan Banks (Community, Breaking Bad), Paulo Costanzo (Royal Pains), and Jay Hernandez (Nashville, Gang Related) will appear as guest stars in the first season. This has them joining the previously cast Thomas Jane, Florence Faivre, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Steven Strait.
“Tipper plays Naomi Nagata, a native of “The Belt” and the brilliant Chief Engineer of the Canterbury who prefers dealing with machines rather than people. Anvar is retired Martian Navy pilot Alex Kamal, now at the helm of Canterbury. Chatham plays Amos, an Earth-born engineer running from a dark past. Banks plays the veteran Executive Officer of the ice-freighter Canterbury. Costanzo plays Medical Technican Shed Garvy, and Hernandez portrays Miller’s new partner, Havelock, an itinerant Earth cop.”
Thomas Jane boarded the project back in July as the lead character, Detective Miller, who is described as “a world-weary, a native of the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter [who works] for a corporate security force operating as the law in the Belt. Ragged, in search of something even he can’t identify, Miller remains a dedicated cop with great instincts who discovers a newfound sense of purpose when he’s put in charge of the investigation into a missing heiress.”
The project got a straight to series order as the property is in a very competitive situation. It’s also the first series for the Alcon Television Group to get the go ahead as that group along with writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby, who worked on Children of Men and Iron Man. The pair will serve as writers and executive producers on the series as it goes into production.
“The Expanse is epic in scale and scope and promises to be Syfy’s most ambitious series to date,” said Syfy President Dave Howe earlier this summer. “Bringing this coveted book franchise to television with our partners at Alcon and the Sean Daniel Company is a giant win for Syfy, reinforcing our overall strategy to produce bold, provocative and compelling sci-fi fantasy stories.”
Plot concept: A thriller set 200 years in the future, The Expanse follows the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.
[Source: Deadline]
