The first teaser trailer for HBO’s new limited series We Own This City is here, and boy does this show look good.
Based on the book We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption, the show “examines the corruption and moral collapse that befell an American city in which the policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work,” according to its official synopsis.
Created and executive produced by George Pelecanos and David Simon, the six-hour limited series is set against the backdrop of the civil unrest that sprung up after local man Freddie Gray died while in police custody. It will specifically focus on the fall of Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, with Jon Bernthal starring as the corrupt Wayne Jenkins. And who better to tell a story of police corruption than Simon, who was the mastermind of HBO’s beloved Baltimore-based, sprawling crime saga The Wire. King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green directs all six episodes.
“He’s got this unbelievable integrity, this unbelievable commitment to journalistic truth that I love,” Bernthal said of Green recently. “We’re always trying to go for the truth on this show. I think police and race and the intersection of those two things is something that’s enormously important to me in my life, and to sort of get this front row seat to it in Baltimore is an unbelievable honor to me, and I think David and George are national treasures.”
Josh Charles and Wunmi Mosaku also star, with Treat Williams, Gabrielle Carteris, Tray Chaney, Domenick Lombardozzi, Thaddeus Street, Jermaine Crawford, and more set to appear as well.
We Own This City is set to hit HBO on April 25. Watch the first teaser trailer up top.
