HBO’s first teaser for Fahrenheit 451 burns everything down

HBO has released the first teaser for its upcoming adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, revealing that the film will air sometime this spring.

The teaser highlights the most vivid part of the novel, showing a burning copy of Crime and Punishment that’s dropped onto a pile of other controversial books, which is set on fire by a firefighter yielding a flamethrower.

Bradbury’s novel is a classic work of science fiction. He originally wrote a series of shorter stories dealing with censorship and repressive governments in the 1950s, and later brought them into the novel in 1953. The story is set in a dystopian world where books are outlawed. It follows Guy Montag, a firefighter whose job is to burn those contraband books. He has a crisis of faith, and ends up on the run.

HBO began developing the project last year, with Creed star Michael B. Jordan and Man of Steel star Michael Shannon set to star as Montag and his superior Captain Beatty, respectively.

This new film is directed by Man Push Cart and Chop Shop director Ramin Bahrani, who told critics at the Television Critics Association winter press tour that Bradbury’s novel is pressingly relevant this year, but that the movie isn’t designed as an anti-President Trump film. Work on the film began a year before the election, he explained, and it’s part of a much bigger political cycle. “I don’t want to focus so much on [Trump] because I don’t want to excuse the 30, 40 years prior to that. He’s just an exaggeration of it now” Bahrani said.