Netflix’s ‘Death by Lightning’ Trailer Teases a 19th Century Presidential Thriller
“Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning,” James Garfield wrote two weeks after his unprecedented ascension to the presidency of the United States. His words would come to have tragic significance: Less than a year later, Garfield was dead, his term in office cut short by an assassin’s bullet.
The four-episode thriller, which counts Game of Thrones and 3 Body Problem co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss among its executive producers, tracks the lives of James Garfield (Michael Shannon), the 20th president of the United States, and Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), a great admirer of Garfield’s — who ends up becoming his assassin. You can watch the new trailer for it below.
The series, created and written by Mike Makowsky (HBO’s Emmy-winning Bad Education) is based on Candice Millard’s book Destiny of the Republic.
Along with Shannon and Macfadyen, Death by Lightning’s core cast also includes Shea Whigham, Nick Offerman, Betty Gilpin and Bradley Whitford. Alistair Petrie, Archie Fisher, Barry Shabaka Henley, Ben Miles, Kyle Soller, Laura Marcus, Paula Malcomson, Shaun Parkes, Tuppence Middleton, Vondie Curtis-Hall and Zeljko Ivanek have guest roles.