James Franco tries to thwart JFK's assassination in teaser for 11-22-63

By Adam Poltrack November 19, 2015

Boy, has the entertainment world changed!

If we were to tell you 10 years ago that J.J. Abrams was producing an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, and that the project starred James Franco as an English teacher who goes back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, you would almost certainly assume that a major movie studio (Fox, Sony, Universal, etc.) or a major network (CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.) was on board.

Fast-forward to today and it’s Hulu that holds the rights to this story and the streaming giant just released the first trailer for the upcoming “eight-part event series” titled 11-22-63.

While it’s sort of ironic that the powers that be decided to release this on 11-19-15 instead of 11-22-15, the short spot packs quite the dramatic punch and certainly boasts an interesting premise. You can thank famed horror maven Stephen King for that, as the series is based on his novel of the same name.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush made news recently by suggesting that — if given the opportunity — he would travel back in time and kill baby Hitler. “Would you go back in time to save JFK?” is sort of the more positive, less creepy version of what has become an popular hypothetical.

Academy Award-winning Director Kevin Macdonald (Last King of Scotland, State of Play) directed the first two hours of the series and — given the level of talent involved with this project — anything but a home run for Hulu here would just feel a touch disappointing.

We’ll see soon enough as 11-22-63 is — appropriately enough — scheduled for a Presidents Day (February 15, 2016) release.

The miniseries also stars Chris Cooper (The Bourne Identity), Josh Duhamel (Transformers), Sarah Gadon (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), and T.R. Knight (42).

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Adam is an A/V News Writer for Digital Trends, and is responsible for bringing you the latest advances in A/V…

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