It has become pretty clear in recent… centuries that the whole United States Of America thing has been a disappointing and protracted failure, but there’s still a fun novelty in looking back at the wacky idiots who got us into this mess by failing to put “women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies” and “nobody really needs to own a gun” in the Constitution.
So let’s take a gander at the first promotional image of Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin in Apple TV+’s still-untitled series about Franklin’s diplomatic mission to convince France to help back up America’s attempt to build a democracy. We first heard about the project in February, when we learned about Douglas’ casting and the fact that John Adams’ Kirk Ellis is writing and that Sopranos’ Tim Van Patten is directing, with the series being based on Stacy Schiff’s book A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, And The Birth Of America.
But you’re here to see Michael Douglas in a ruffled shirt and long hair, hanging a key from a kite and going to bed early:
Sadly, the key and kite are probably offscreen, but you can tell from the look on his face that this is a man in his ‘70s who woke up too early. Also, while this won’t really come through because of the limitations of this website, the image Apple sent out in a press release is enormously large, so we can click the “actual size” button on the photo and crop out everything but his giant face:
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Now that’s a damn face! In addition to this big face, Apple’s press release has some additional cast information, like Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) playing Temple Franklin, Ludivine Sagnier (Lupin) playing Madame Brillon, Thibault de Montalembert (Call My Agent!) playing Vergnees, Daniel Mays (Rogue One) playing Edward Bancroft, Assaad Bouab (The Pursuit Of Love) as Beacumarchais, Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan) as John Adams, Jeanne Balibar (Irma Vep) as Helvetius, and Theodore Pellerin (On Becoming A God In Central Florida) as Lafayette (“LAFAYETTE!” like from Hamilton). Note: Apple didn’t bother writing out the full names of those French nobles, so we won’t either.
