Michael C. Hall is set to star in new Netflix series Safe, an eight-part thriller written by Shameless‘ Danny Brocklehurst. The project marks the actor's return to live action television after several years spent voicing characters for shows like Justice League and Star vs. the Forces of Evil. He previously starred as titular serial killer Dexter Morgan on Dexter, which enjoyed a lengthy run from 2006 to 2013.
In the four-year interim, Hall has also dabbled in film — he appeared in both 2014 crime drama Cold in July and last year's bio drama Christine — but has kept relatively quiet otherwise. Now, it seems he's ready to take on another leading role.
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As reported by Deadline, Hall will play a British pediatric surgeon raising two teenage daughters, Jenny and Carrie, alone after the death of his wife. They live in a seemingly safe and picturesque gated community, but all of that is thrown into disarray one night when Jenny sneaks out to a party. A murder and a disappearance follow, bringing buried secrets to the surface. Hall and Brocklehurst will also executive produce alongside Nicola Shindler (Happy Valley), Richard Fee (The Five), and author-producer Harlan Coben.
Coben is primarily known as an author, having penned a myriad of mystery and thriller novels over the last two decades, but he shifted to screen with UK crime drama The Five last year. It was his style that drew Netflix to Safe, as Shindler told Variety:
"The serialized nature of this, and Harlan’s way of storytelling, lends itself to streaming. He’s all about the hook of a story. After ‘The Five,’ he wanted to write something about family and how we build walls to keep out the bad people, but what if they’re on the inside? It’s about how far you’d go to protect your family.”
Though it's not yet clear who will end up as the killer (or who ends up dead) this time around, Safe seems an apt choice for Hall given his work on Dexter. Still, it's difficult to judge how Safe will be received, as Netflix has proved hit or miss when it comes to the thriller genre. The Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood-led film I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore was widely praised, but the recently unveiled Gypsy — a series that more closely resembles Safe's set up — was largely panned. Coben's The Five, too, received mixed responses, so Safe could really go either way.
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Safe is currently slated for a 2018 premiere.