Get set for AXN’s most buzzed-about drama series (think ALIAS meets HANNIBAL) to take audiences worldwide by storm, as the action and adventure channel brings to Asia the electrifying suspense thriller that is The Blacklist. Premiering in a double night premiere on October 7 and 8 (Monday and Tuesday) at 10pm and airing regularly every Wednesday at 10PM (starting October 16), first and exclusively on AXN, The Blacklist tops the must-watch list of TV shows in 2013.
To date, The Blacklist has averaged 12 million viewers and a 3.6 rating (in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic in its first two airings in the 10 p.m. Monday post-The Voice Season 5 slot in the US) making it the No. 1 new drama in total viewers thus far this season. The Blacklist has topped its time period in both airings.
Winner of the Cannes film festival’s best actor prize and multiple Emmy awards, James Spader of Sex, Lies and Videotape, Crash, The Office and Boston Legal-fame, stars as former U.S. government agent Raymond “Red” Reddington. One of the FBI’s Most Wanted fugitives for decades, he has brokered shadowy deals for criminals across the globe and was known as “The Concierge of Crime.”
“He’s a bad guy who relishes it, and enjoys it, and embraces it wholly,” explained Spader of his role as Red, the assured, worldly and knowing criminal mastermind. “(Red’s) criminal activity was on an international basis. From country to country, dealing with nation-states, dealing with organization, political organization,” Spader elaborated. “He’s a businessman and his business is crime.”
Now, Red has mysteriously surrendered to the FBI with an explosive offer: He will help nail a long-thought-dead terrorist, Ranko Zamani, but under the condition that he speaks only to Elizabeth “Liz” Keen (Megan Boone, Law & Order: Los Angeles), an FBI profiler fresh out of the bureau’s academy in Quantico.
The situation baffles FBI agent Donald Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff, Homeland) who tracked Red without success for years, and FBI assistant director Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix, Man of Steel), who has no choice but to rely on Liz. For Liz, it will be one heck of a first day at work. What follows is a thrilling series of twists and turns as the race to stop the terrorist begins – complete with the kidnap of a general’s daughter and a biological weapon of mass destruction that is ticking away…
What is Red’s real agenda? Why has he chosen Liz, whom he has seemingly no connection with? Does Liz have secrets of her own? What about her husband Tom Keen (Ryan Eggold, Daybreak, 90210), who seems to be caught in the midst of it all?
In fact, Zamani is only the first of many on a list that Red has compiled over the years: a “blacklist” of politicians, mobsters, spies and international terrorists. He will help catch them all, with the caveat that Liz continues to be his partner. Red will teach Liz to think like a criminal and “see the bigger picture”… whether she wants to or not.
The Blacklist is executive produced by Jon Bokenkamp (The Call, Taking Lives), John Eisendrath (Alias), John Davis (Predator, I, Robot) and John Fox. The pilot was directed by Joe Carnahan (The A-Team, The Grey). Bokenkamp reveals that The Blacklist was first conceptualized with fellow executive producer John Fox, on the intriguing premise of what “if one of these (top criminals) started to talk?” Red and his knowledge of the criminal world and workings would make him the “Rosetta Stone of crime”.
A production of Sony Pictures Television and Davis Entertainment, The Blacklist has already generated such massive interest among broadcasters globally that the series has been acquired to air in 11 languages to more than 100 million viewers across 66 countries spanning four continents including across Asia on AXN.
With the critically acclaimed James Spader starring as master criminal Raymond “Red” Reddington, brace for an edge of your seat, blockbuster suspense thriller that unravels the world’s most elusive perpetrators of crime and terror in The Blacklist, beginning this October only on AXN.
In the Philippines, The Blacklist will air on a double night premiere Oct 7 & 8 at 10PM, and will be seen regularly Wednesdays at 10pm First & Exclusively on AXN
