On April 14, 1865, while watching a production of the play “Our American Friend,” President of the United States Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln would die from his wounds the following day. Breaking his leg during his escape from the theater, Booth fled. He hid out in a Rural Virginia farmhouse until it was surrounded by a New York Calvary and burned. While trying to sneak out of the farmhouse, Booth was shot by a member of the cavalry.
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Countless individuals were tried before a military tribunal, and three were executed for conspiring with Booth to assassinate Lincoln. Based on the nonfiction book “Manhunt” by James L. Swanson, the seven-part AppleTV+ show will tell the story of authorities’ hunt for John Wilkes Booth as a conspiracy thriller.
“Manhunt” stars Tobias Menzies (“Game of Thrones,” “The Crown”) in the lead role. Other roles in the show will be filled by up-and-comer Anthony Boyle (“Masters Of Air,”), Will Harrison (“Daisy Jones and the Six”), Brandon Flynn (“13 Reasons Why”), and Hamish Linklater (“Midnight Mass”) “Manhunt” is executive produced by Carl Franklin, director of “Devil in a Blue Dress,” “One False Move” and episodes of “Mindhunter,” and he will be directing the first two episodes of the series.
“I think the show has a lot about it that’s very relevant,” Emmy nominee Monica Beletsky, who created the show and also serves as showrunner and executive producer, told Vanity Fair recently. “This was a domestic attack that was so unusual. Lincoln used to have the door to the White House unlocked for the duration of the war. So, murder of this kind was just not done.”
Here’s the official synopsis:
Based on The New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning nonfiction book from author James L. Swanson, “Manhunt” is a conspiracy thriller about one of the best-known but least understood crimes in history, the astonishing story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
The show will debut on March 15, 2024, on AppleTV+, with episodes debuting weekly until April 19. Watch the first trailer below.