From the now classic “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne, published in 1870, comes a new imagining of Nemo, Captain of the Nautilus. The new series on Amazon Prime Video retells the story in a completely new way.

This mini-series focuses on the early days of Nemo’s career, before the events portrayed in the beloved 1954 Disney movie. Nemo is still the genius who designed the Nautilus, but he did not build her for himself.

Nautilius features an international cast. British actor Shazad Latif stars as the brilliant captain Nemo. Unlike the late James Mason, Latif actually looks like he might be a deposed Indian prince. Our fans might recognize him from the Showtime show Penny Dreadful, where he played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or as Lt. Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery. Or you may have seen him as data analyst Tariq Masood in the BBC’s Spooks or as Kushal in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2016), starring the late Dame Maggie Smith.

Nemo leads a prisoner escape, stealing his own ship to do so. Naturally the East India Company is not happy about this, and pursue him with all the means at their command. If you remember the British Raj in the days when Rudyard Kipling was a young writer, you’ll remember they had considerable means. If you’re not a Kipling fan, think of The Far Pavilions.

The year is 1857, and the British East India Company currently wields more power than any nation on Earth, thanks to its private armies and navy, while stealing the riches of the nations they’ve subdued. In Kalpani, India, a massive submersible ship, the Nautilus, is being secretly built by the Company using slave labor from the Colonial prison. Although originally designed as a vessel of undersea exploration, the Company intends to arm the Nautilus and use it as a new type of warship. One of the prisoners forced to build the Nautilus is, Nemo, who also designed the Nautilus ‘s engines, but who has also been planning a prisoner uprising in order to seize the Nautilus and use it to escape.

“So many things we will see, that no one has ever seen.”

Even as an escaped convict, Nemo is first and foremost a scientist. He will explore the mysteries of the ocean and plumb its secrets. This mini-series is not a Jacques Custeau special, but there will be many undersea creatures which Nemo and his crew will encounter.

Australian actress Georgia Flood co-stars as a new character, Humility Lucas, who appears in neither the Jules Verne book, nor the Disney movie. Flood previously starred in the sci-fi thriller I am Evangeline (2015), as Evangeline, a runaway clone. She played Phoebe in the award-winning Australian TV series House Husbands.

It looks to be full of action and adventure, and a tale of revenge and exploration, a saga of danger and daring set in such exotic locations as under the Pacific Ocean and in India just a few years before Victoria was declared Empress of India (1857 was the year of the Sepoy Rebellion).

Nautilus will be a ten episode mini-series, premiering October 25, 2024 on Amazon Prime in the U.S. and the U.K. Sweden got a sneak peek this summer. In Australia, it will premiere October 25, through the streaming platform Stan. If you have Swedish pen pals, ask them how they liked the show, or check out the trailer above to see for yourself.