Burn it down: all the updates, trailers, and commentary for HBO’s Fahrenheit 451

Dystopian stories are often described as warnings, but they can also be Rorschach blots. Readers dive in with specific fears — about technology, society, or the future — and find an allegory to validate them. And Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s classic 1953 novel, is a perfectly adaptable cautionary tale. It’s an elegant high-concept story backed by a complicated web of broad social complaints, critiquing everything from social justice to the zipper. This might be why it’s produced two dramatically different films: one from French auteur François Truffaut in 1966, and the other from 99 Homes director Ramin Bahrani, premiering this weekend on HBO.

As many readers likely know, the novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future in which books are illegal, and instead of putting out fires, “firemen” hunt down caches of literature and burn them. The protagonist is a fireman named Guy Montag, who one day smuggles a book home and reads it, setting himself on the path to knowledge and, ultimately, rebellion.

HBO has released a new full-length trailer for its upcoming adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, which shows off the world’s hellish dystopian society in which books are banned and burned.

The film will star Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan as Guy Montag, a fireman who comes to question his job, while Shape of Water’s Michael Shannon plays Captain Beatty, the captain of his station. 99 Houses director Ramin Bahrani wrote and directed the movie.

HBO’s upcoming adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 finally has a release date: May 19th, 2018, according to Variety. The network announced the project last year, which stars Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan and The Shape of Water’s Michael Shannon. Ramin Bahrani (99 Houses) directed and co-wrote the film.

Bradbury published the novel in 1953, expanding several shorter works about censorship and authoritarianism. In this future, books are banned, viewed as dangerous to society for the ideas that impart. The government employs a task force of people, called Firemen, to set the books on fire when they’re discovered. The novel and film follows one such fireman, Guy Montag, who begins to doubt his job and rebel against the current social order.

There’s no specific release date yet for HBO’s Fahrenheit 451, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel about a future dystopia where books are illegal, and “firemen” are special operatives who find them and burn them. But the network has just released the first full trailer for the film. With Black Panther still setting box office records, the timing is just right: Fahrenheit 451 stars Michael B. Jordan, currently on-screen as Black Panther’s memorable, celebrated villain Erik Killmonger, and his role in the new film channels a similar mesmerizing ferocity and idealism. Jordan plays protagonist Guy Montag, a dedicated fireman who begins to have doubts about his profession, and about the government that has outlawed books as inherently dangerous because they preserve and communicate ideas.

Bradbury’s book is simultaneously caustic and melancholy. It’s a classic takedown of censorship and a gently frustrated prediction of a future where people are so absorbed into their entertainment that they don’t care about the world outside their screens. (Director Ramin Bahrani, of 99 Homes and Chop Shop, says he always regarded the book as “prophetic.”) But this trailer is all fire: the literal fire of books burning, obviously, but also the metaphorical fire of Guy’s initial fanaticism, and the self-righteous fury of his supervisor Captain Beatty, played by The Shape of Water villain Michael Shannon. There’s nothing melancholy or removed about this sneak peek, which suggests HBO’s film is going to be direct, angry, forceful, and just as politically charged as the original book. It’s set for release in May.

HBO has released the first teaser for its upcoming adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, revealing that the film will air sometime this spring.

The teaser highlights the most vivid part of the novel, showing a burning copy of Crime and Punishment that’s dropped onto a pile of other controversial books, which is set on fire by a firefighter yielding a flamethrower.