The trailer for Netflix’s new film Spiderhead, starring Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, is out, and it looks like a Black Mirror episode. The teaser introduces us to a reality in which Hemsworth’s character Steve Abnesti conducts drug research on humans, including Teller, who lose control of themselves as soon as the medicine is administered.
Prisoners are used in the drug trials, and the institution is a new prison for them. They may be themselves here till the medicine takes effect. “While theoretically a punishment, your presence in our prison is a privilege,” Hemsworth’s Steve explains.
“Inmates wear a surgically implanted device that distributes dosages of mind-altering pharmaceuticals in exchange for commuted sentences in a state-of-the-art jail controlled by bright visionary Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth),” according to the Spiderhead summary. No bars, cells, or orange jumpsuits are present. Volunteers in prison are free to be themselves in Spiderhead. Unless they aren’t. They’re sometimes a better version. Do you want to lighten up? There is a medication for that. Have you run out of words? There’s also a medicine for it. When two patients, Jeff (Miles Teller) and Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett), build a bond, their journey to redemption becomes more complicated, as Abnesti’s experiments begin to stretch the boundaries of free will entirely.”
The film was written by 6 Underground and Deadpool scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and is based on a 2010 New Yorker short story by Goerge Saunders titled Escape From Spiderhead. Joseph Kosinski, who directed Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, and Top Gun: Maverick, will direct the film.
“Inmates wear a surgically implanted device that dispenses dosages of mind-altering pharmaceuticals in return for commuted sentences in a state-of-the-art penitentiary administered by bright visionary Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth),” according to the film’s synopsis. No bars, cells, or orange jumpsuits are present. Volunteers in prison are free to be themselves in Spiderhead. Unless they aren’t. They’re sometimes a better version. Do you want to lighten up? There is a medication for that. Have you run out of words? There’s also a medicine for it.”
