Anthony Hopkins and Evan Rachel Wood join HBO’s Westworld series

As reported by Deadline, Hopkins and Wood are officially confirmed for the series, which is inspired by Michael Crichton’s 1973 sci-fi western of the same name. The series will be produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company, with Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight) and Lisa Joy Nolan (USA’s Burn Notice) co-writing the series and serving as executive producers with Abrams. Jonathan Nolan, who shared an Oscar nomination with his brother Christopher Nolan for penning the script to 2000’s Memento, will also direct the pilot episode.

The original film starred Yul Brynner and James Brolin, and chronicled the drama that ensues when robots malfunction at a futuristic amusement park for adults. It spawned a sequel, 1976’s Futureworld, as well as a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld. The HBO series is described as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.”

The series will cast Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford, “the brilliant, taciturn and complicated creative director, chief programmer and chairman of the board of Westworld who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park — and unorthodox methods of achieving it.” Woods will play a farmgirl who discovers that her entire existence is a product of the park’s elaborate program.

The report notes that actor James Marsden is currently in talks for another lead role in the series.