'Kindred' Trailer: Octavia Butler's Time Travel Novel Comes To Terrifying Life

The first teaser for "Kindred," FX on Hulu's limited series adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's acclaimed novel, has been released.

First published in 1979, "Kindred" focuses on Dana James, a young, aspiring black writer living in Los Angeles with her husband Kevin Franklin. While in the process of moving, Dana finds herself abruptly tossed between modern times and 1815 Maryland during the Southern Antebellum period. During her travels in the past, she struggles to survive while trapped on a plantation owned by the wealthy Weylin family and eventually uncovers shocking secrets about her own family history. The book was critically acclaimed upon release, became a bestseller, and has since become a frequent high school and college pick.

The TV adaptation of "Kindred" stars Mallori Johnson as Dana and Micah Stock as Kevin, with Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown and Sheria Irving starring in complete the cast. The series was developed for television by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a playwright whose works "Gloria" and "Everybody" were selected as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. In television, he has worked as a consulting producer on HBO's "Watchmen" and Amazon Prime Video's "Outer Range".

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Jacobs-Jenkins is producing with "The Americans" creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, Courtney Lee-Mitchell, Jules Jackson, and filmmakers Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel for Protozoa Pictures. “Zola” director Janicza Bravo produced and directed the pilot. The limited series is produced by FX Productions.

This is the first screen adaptation of one of Butler's works. The author, who published her first stories in the 1970s and died in 2006, was one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers of her time and one of the most prominent black authors working in the gender. During her career, she won several Hugo Awards and Nebula Awards and made history as the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Besides "Kindred", she is also known for the 2005 vampire novel "Fledging" and the series "Patternist", "Lilith's Brood" and "Parable".

All eight episodes of “Kindred” premiere on Hulu on December 13. Watch the full trailer below.

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