Since the end of Game of Thrones, creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss have focused much of their energy on 3 Body Problem, an ambitious, challenging sci-fi series on Netflix. But while we wait for the second season of that show, they're serving as executive producers on a couple others. That includes Death By Lightning, based on the 2011 novel Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Miller.
Death by Lightning (a much shorter but still punchy title) is about the 20th president of the United States, James Garfield. He was inaugurated as president in 1881, a time when the country was still healing from the wounds of the Civil War. He was considered effective, but was assassinated just nine months into his term.
When you think of presidential assassinations, the first to come to mind are probably Lincoln and Kennedy; I feel like the Garfield assassination gets the short shrift, but it shouldn't because it's a crazy story. Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, a strange character who had published a speech in support of Garfield in his campaign against Winfield Scott Hancock. By all accounts, Guiteau's speech sucked; he never actually gave it in public and only distributed a few hundred copies. And yet Guiteau became convinced that his speech was key to Garfield's victory. For his service, he thought Garfield owed him a sweet government job, and when this did not happen, decided to kill the president in revenge.
Tell me that doesn't sound like an entertaining limited series! Netflix recently released several photos from the upcoming show, including Man of Steel's Michael Shannon as President James Garfield:
While Benioff and Weiss will produce Death By Lightning, Mike Makowsky wrote all the episodes and served as showrunner; the show is his baby. Matt Ross directed all the episodes. To play Charles Guiteau, the team tapped Succession veteran Matthew Macfadyen:
And here's one of Guiteau looking up in ecstasy as, I'm guessing, he hears that Garfield has won the election. He looks near tears with happiness. After all, it was all because of him.
GLOW star Betty Gilmpin will play first lady Crete Garfield (that's short for Lucretia, which is slightly less weird):
Supporting cast members include the likes of Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, The Last of Us), who will play Vice President Chester Arthur...
...and Shea Whigham (Joker) as Senator Roscoe Conkling:
This sounds like a cool series, and I like how invested Mike Makowsky seems in the story. “I found it unspeakably tragic and moving,” he told Tudum of the original novel, “but also weirdly funny in a very dark way. It’s a tone that I tend to chase in the work that I take on, but there is a very deeply ingrained situational absurdity to roughly all of the proceedings that I was just so stunned by. As soon as I finished the book, I knew that I needed to adapt it and that in its best incarnation, it could speak to people in ways that other period shows might not.”
"The theme of corruption in politics and our bureaucracy feels particularly evergreen these days. The idea of civil service reform and waging a battle to clean up the grift in our government — this is something that Garfield very much stood on the front lines of in his time. In 1881, it feels like America is sort of standing at a crossroads between the past and what the future of this country is going to look like, and it’s up to [people like Garfield] to really define how America, 100 years after its inception, is going to look, and what kind of society they’re going to be."
It's kind of making me want to read the book. Death By Lightning doesn't have a firm release date, but will be out sometime this year.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.