Eddie Redmayne Anchors Thriller Reboot The Day of the Jackal

Peacock’s ten-part reimagining of The Day of the Jackal updates material from Frederick Forsyth’s novel that wasn’t in the 1973 film and resets the story for a changed world of espionage and political violence. The streamer has confirmed a Season 2, suggesting the series was designed to expand beyond its initial arc.

In this version, “The Jackal” is the codename of Alexander Duggan, a former United Kingdom Special Forces officer turned international assassin played by Eddie Redmayne. The series begins with the assassination of a far-right politician and an international manhunt led by MI6 agent Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch), and it unfolds into a wider crisis involving radicalized activists, loyalist paramilitaries, and an MI6 conspiracy that drags the Jackal’s private life into danger.

Redmayne’s performance draws attention for how convincingly he portrays a killer who must feign empathy; one early sequence stages a false flag that puts a character’s son in the hospital to draw a target into the open.

United Kingdom

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