Apparently, it’s a big day for post-apocalyptic shows set in Manhattan. Mere hours after the news broke of a new Walking Dead show with that premise, the first trailer for DC’s upcoming HBO Max show DMZ is here. In it, Rosario Dawson plays a mum who goes into the demilitarized zone once known as New York City to find her son. And it looks intense.
Based on the DC comic book series written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Riccardo Burchielli, DMZ will drop all four episodes at the same time on March 17. In addition to Dawson, it stars Benjamin Bratt, Hoon Lee, Freddy Miyares, Jordan Preston Carter, Venus Ariel. Check it out.
DMZ the show was created by and showrun by Roberto Patino (Westworld, Sons of Anarchy) and produced by Oscar nominee Ava DuVernay. It’s set during a time when a second Civil War divides America; during the fallout, a medic named Alma Ortega (Dawson) loses her son. She thinks he’s in Manhattan, which had been evacuated and turned into a demilitarized zone. To find and save him, she decides to go full Snake Plissken and head to the DMZ. On the way, she runs into a crime boss, played by Benjamin Bratt, who is taking advantage of the situation.
And, yes, in that trailer we see footage of a character dressed as Batman. So it seems like maybe it’s set in some version of the DC Multiverse. But as you can tell from the intense trailer, that’s very far from the point. “DMZ offers up an explosive playground which, more than anything else, exalts the resilience of community and the human spirit,” Patino said back in 2020 when the show was greenlit. “I can’t wait to welcome the die-hard fans of the comic books and new viewers alike to this intoxicating, haunting, and inspiring world.”