Skip to main content

New trailer for HBO series Vinyl shows Bobby Cannavale at his frenetic best

Following the steady trickle of numerous short teasers, a trailer has finally surfaced for Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger’s new HBO series, Vinyl. The new drama will debut in 2016, and center around an imagined history of the sex, drug, and rock and roll industry in 1970s New York.

In the new trailer, most of which is set to The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog, viewers see a record executive (Bobby Cannavale) looking for the next rock and roll sound. He’s the type of New York hustler who believes that the key to success is finding something new and exciting — sometimes in grimy places. The pace of the show appears to match that of the music, with heavy, sometimes brutal, scenes that pair up well with the songs the series will showcase.

One can easily see Scorsese’s fingerprints all over the first looks at the show. The famed director/producer seems to love main characters who are equal parts intelligent and psychotic, with a conquer-the-world bent.

Besides Scorsese and Jagger, Vinyl  is being executive produced by Terence Winter, who has previous experience working with HBO on Boardwalk Empire, and who wrote the screenplay for Scorsese’s smash hit The Wolf of Wall Street.

The debut episode was written by Winter and directed by Scorsese, leaving some big shoes to fill for whatever team follows up with the rest of the 10 episode first season. Then again, with a founding pair so strong, their replacements will likely be very talented.

Even the cast is relatively star studded. Along with Cannavale, the series co-stars Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, Jagger’s own son James, and — of all people — Ray Romano as a record executive.

As far as the Rolling Stones are concerned, it looks as though there will be very little overlap with their style of music  — with the Stones’ biggest hits appearing to have been made a bit before this heavier, more drug-fueled era.

Either way, it’s probably good to have two high-profile executive producers who lived and worked in the heavy-rock time, and Scorsese and Jagger will probably both bring enough real-life history to the new series to make it extremely compelling.

Editors' Recommendations

Parker Hall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…
Ansel Elgort is a man in a new land in Tokyo Vice trailer
Ken Watanabe and Ansel Elgort in Tokyo Vice.

Next month, HBO Max is taking viewers into Japan's criminal underworld in Tokyo Vice. This new crime drama is based upon journalist Jake Adelstein's 2009 nonfiction book Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. Ansel Elgort is portraying Adelstein in the series, and if the first trailer is any indication, he isn't exactly welcome in Japan.

In the trailer, Jake is belittled by many of his colleagues, who dismiss him as a "foreigner." However, he does find a mentor of sorts in Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), a detective in the Tokyo Police Department's organized crime division. Hiroto knows all of the ins and outs of this world, but Jake may be biting off more than he can chew, especially when Hiroto warns him not to write about certain events.

Read more
The Batman’s Colin Farrell to star in HBO Max’s new Penguin series
Colin Farrell in The Penguin.

The Batman will hit theaters in just a few months, but HBO Max already has plans to expand this new vision of Gotham City. Variety is reporting that Colin Farrell has signed on to reprise his role as Oswald Cobblepot in HBO Max's Penguin spinoff series. Reports about The Batman's latest spinoff first emerged in September, but Farrell wasn't attached to the project at that time.

Writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane created Penguin in 1941, and he has become one of Batman's most enduring adversaries. Despite his grotesque appearance, Penguin tends to spend time among Gotham City's high-society members, while also using his assortment of trick umbrellas to commit crimes. In the first Batman live-action TV series from 1966-68, Penguin was played by Burgess Meredith, while Danny DeVito took over the role in 1992's Batman Returns. Robin Lord Taylor portrayed a younger Oswald Cobblepot in Fox's 2014 Gotham series.

Read more
New Peacemaker trailer pushes John Cena’s antihero to his limit
Danielle Brooks and John Cena in Peacemaker.

The Suicide Squad introduced John Cena's Peacemaker as a man who had no problem killing anyone in the name of peace, even if it came down to murdering his teammates. However, HBO Max's new Peacemaker trailer finally finds a line that Christopher Smith (Cena) won't cross. Peacemaker has previously claimed that he would kill "men, women, and children," but that last part may have been a lie. Because when given the chance to take out his latest target, Peacemaker hesitates because it would also endanger the target's child.

By his own admission, Peacemaker isn't given to moments of introspection. He has a very uncomplicated view of life and his place as a "superhero." But this crisis of conscience actually gives Peacemaker pause and forces him to question what he's doing. That's bad news for Peacemaker's new boss, Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji). We don't know much about Murn yet, but he has enough sway with the government to keep Peacemaker out of jail as long as he takes out high-value targets. And according to Murn, the world needs a man like Peacemaker who is willing to take those shots.

Read more