Perry Mason makes comeback
REBOOT: CRIME DRAMA SET IN LOS ANGELES IN ’30S
New version devotes full season to a single, gripping case.
Period crime drama Perry Mason, HBO’s biggest debut in nearly two years, is now available to binge on Showmax.
Emmy winner and Golden Globe nominee Matthew Rhys (The Americans) is Perry Mason, a down-and-out detective working the biggest kidnapping case of the 1930s.
A reboot of the award-winning 1950s-60s legal series based on Erle Stanley Gardner’s stories, Perry Mason also stars Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black); Oscar nominee John Lithgow (The Crown, 3rd Rock from the Sun); Emmy nominees Stephen Root (Barry); and Lili Taylor (American Crime), Juliet Ryland (The Knick), and Chris Chalk (When They See Us), among others.
“There is so much going on with this Mason,” says Matthew. “He’s a very damaged individual who’s come through World War One. He’s a veteran who’s going through an inordinate number of life problems when we meet him but there is this one element to him which I think is garnered from the injustice of the war: he can’t abide injustice.”
The executive producers include Team Downey – Susan Downey and Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man), who was tipped to play Mason in the project’s original incarnation as a potential movie.
His feature commitments necessitated a recast, however, which, it turns out, wasn’t so sad after all – Matthew so completely owns the role that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the part.
“He’s the exact right actor in the exact right role in the same way James Gandolfini was Tony Soprano,” says Emmy-winning director Timothy van Patten, who helmed more of The Sopranos than anyone else.
The original Perry Mason, a legal drama series starring evergreen favourite Raymond Burr, was one of the most successful and long-running shows of its time, winning a Golden Globe and three Emmys.
It’s arguably the template for every hugely successful crime and courtroom procedural that followed, from LA Law to Law & Order and Suits.
Matthew’s hard-boiled gumshoe is a radical shift from the original’s savvy defence attorney – this is not the Perry Mason your granny had a crush on. Matthew calls the new version “a reimagining, rather than a remake… The origin story of how Perry Mason became a defence attorney.”
Perry Mason is set in Los Angeles in the ’30s (and shot on The Godfather stages at Paramount Studios). Unlike its episodic predecessor, the new version devotes the full season to a single, gripping case.
“We’re doing a serialised show, so it’s slowed down in a sense,” showrunner Rolin Jones (Westworld) told Town & Country, “but what’s timeless about it is that there’s a guy who’s trying to hold up a mirror to the world and say there are people who need someone to fight for them.”
The show premiered at the end of June, delivering HBO’s biggest debut in nearly two years. Its August finale delivered a season-high audience of 1.1 million for its live network screening alone – a 24% increase on the premiere, which has already been seen by nearly 9m across all HBO platforms.
Unsurprising then, that HBO has already renewed the show for a second season.