The strange and compelling history of the Bermuda Triangle — a region of the Atlantic Ocean where many ships and aircraft are said to have mysteriously gone missing — has already served as the basis for several movies and TV shows. Based on its teaser poster — which depicts a commercial steamboat about to fall into a triangular hole in a large body of water — and some known pilot details, the upcoming Netflix TV show 1899 appears to be the latest and, perhaps, one of the most fascinating titles yet to take inspiration from the legend.
Of course, we are only making an inference here, but the following is a list of all the details that we do know about the mysterious limited series — such as when paranormal enthusiasts with a Netflix subscription will be available to stream it.
1899 Premieres On Netflix November 17
Who said that horror stories and supernatural mystery thrillers should only be reserved for the month of October? Well, I certainly do not agree with that and, apparently, Netflix does not either, as evidenced by the fact that 1899 is currently scheduled to debut on the platform more than a couple weeks after Halloween will have passed, on Thursday, November 17, 2022, to be exact.
Attendees of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival were already treated with the chance to see the first two episodes, which Netflix noted were met with much acclaim, but the dark and disturbing mysteries should only grow deeper as the story goes on.
1899 Consists Of Eight Episodes
There is no fixed amount of episodes for a Netflix original limited series, with some lasting as long as 10 episodes — such as the horrifying The Haunting of Hill House from Mike Flanagan — and others keeping things a bit slimmer with, say, six episodes — much like the 2022 survival thriller Keep Breathing, starring Scream’s Melissa Barrera, did.
However, the sweet spot that much of the bulk of the platform’s miniseries tend to hit is a not-too-long and not-too-short total of eight episodes, and it appears that the creators of 1899 agree that eight is enough. The story of this exciting new thriller will be told to completion in eight chapters, but what exactly does this story entail?
1899 Is A Supernatural Period Piece
If you could not already tell from the title, 1899 takes place near the end of the 19th century and focuses on the voyage of a steamboat bringing a diverse group of immigrant travelers from Europe to New York. However, they are forced to take a detour when the captain receives what appears to be a message from a ship called the Prometheus, which disappeared months ago and, thus, was believed to have sunk.
When they, indeed, do find the missing sea craft adrift on the ocean, they board it to investigate the matter, but are only faced with more questions and puzzling, unnatural circumstances that starts to drive the crew members and the passengers to become at odds with each other, and puts every person board in equally grave danger.
The 1899 Cast Features Actors From All Over The World
Bringing these diverse characters to life is the diverse 1899 cast — which includes several Netflix veterans like German-born Andreas Pietschmann from Dark, Miguel Bernardeau from Netflix’s Spanish drama Elite, and, from the Danish sci-fi thriller The Rain, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnese and Clara Rosagern. Polish actor Maciej Musial (who played Sir Lazlo on The Witcher) also stars alongside the English actress Rosalie Craig (who had a brief part in The Queen’s Gambit cast), Alexandre Willaume from another Danish fantasy thriller called Equinox, and another Danish actor named Maria Erwolter, who appeared in David Brucker’s 2017 Netflix original horror movie, The Ritual.
The 1899 cast also features other UK-based actors like England’s Emily Beecham (best known from AMC’s Into the Badlands) and Wales’ Anuerin Barnard (best known from Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk), as well as Hong Kong natives Isabella Wei and Gabby Wong (the latter of whom played a resistance pilot in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). The ensemble also includes French-Cameroonian actor Yann Gael, Portugal’s José Pimentão, and France’s Mathilde Ollivier, whom you may recognize from another period horror title from 2018 called Overlord.
1899 Comes From The Creators Of Dark
1899 actually marks a reunion for Andreas Pietschmann and the creators of Dark, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, are who also the masterminds behind this new, international mind-bender of a series. Before the German-language supernatural drama made them both known in other parts of the world, the duo collaborated on movies that bo Odar directed — such as the 2010 crime thriller The Silence (which they co-produced) and another crime drama from 2014 called Who Am I? (which they co-wrote).
He also made his feature-length debut with 2006’s coming-of-age drama, Unter der Sonne and later landed his English-language debut in 2017 with the cop drama, Sleepless — based on the French-Belgian-Luxembourgian thriller Sleepless Night — starring Jamie Foxx.
A New Virtual Production Facility Called Dark Bay Was Created For 1899
Perhaps the only thing most captivating about 1899 other than its mysterious and fantastic premise is its visual effects, which are achieved with a cutting edge technique that has become a lot more common on film and TV show sets, called virtual production.
The method — which many of Disney’s newer Star Wars TV shows, like The Mandalorian, use — involves capturing footage like you would on a simple, live-action set, but in front of backdrops that project CGI graphics in real time, instead of acting in front of a green screen and animating the effects later. According to Tech Crunch, an entirely new company dedicated to the use of virtual production — and the first based in Europe — was launched specifically for the production of 1899 called Dark Bay, which is an official subsidiary of Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese’s production company, Dark Ways.
It looks like the characters in this new series are going down some dark pathways and far, far away from the nearest dark bay. See what strange territories they endure and who will survive when 1899 hits Netflix this November.
