The Looming Tower

The Looming Tower is an upcoming American drama miniseries based on the book of the same name by Lawrence Wright. Consisting of ten episodes, The Looming Tower is executive produced by Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney, and Wright. It is set to premiere on Hulu on February 28, 2018.

Premise
The Looming Tower traces the "rising threat of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and how the rivalry between the FBI and CIA during that time may have inadvertently set the path for the tragedy of 9/11. It follows members of the I-49 Squad in New York and Alec Station in Washington, D.C., the counter-terrorism divisions of the FBI and CIA, respectively, as they travel the world fighting for ownership of information while seemingly working toward the same goal – trying to prevent an imminent attack on U.S. soil."

Main

 * Tahar Rahim as Ali Soufan
 * Jeff Daniels as John O’Neill
 * Peter Sarsgaard as Martin Schmidt
 * Wrenn Schmidt as Diane Priest
 * Michael Stuhlbarg as Richard Clarke
 * Bill Camp as Robert Chesney
 * Sullivan Jones as Floyd Bennet
 * Virginia Kull as Kathy Shaughnessy
 * Louis Cancelmi as Vince Stuart

Guest stars

 * Alec Baldwin as George Tenet
 * Ella Rae Peck as Heather
 * Jennifer Dundas as Mary Jo White
 * Stewart Steinberg as Larry Silverstein
 * Donald Sage Mackay as Commander Kirk Lippold
 * Nezar Alderazi as Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi
 * Sami Karim as Omar al-Bayoumi
 * Ayman Samman as Abu Anas al-Libi
 * Nebras Jamali as Nawaf al-Hazmi
 * Zaki Youssef as Nasser al-Bahri
 * Tawfeek Barhom as Khalid al-Mihdhar

Development
In September 2016, Hulu ordered The Looming Tower to series from Legendary Entertainment with executive producers including Alex Gibney, Dan Futterman, and Lawrence Wright. It was announced that the limited series would consist of ten episodes and premiere in 2017. It was later reported that Craig Zisk was also an executive producer for the series and would be directing as well. Ultimately, five different directors were chosen to helm the series' ten episodes: Zisk, Michael Slovis, John Dahl, Ali Selim and Alex Gibney. The show's first episode was directed by Gibney, episodes six and seven were directed by Slovis, and episodes eight, nine, ten were directed by Zisk. The series' story requires multiple international locations with the first five episodes having scenes that are set in seven countries and ten cities. Early on in the development process, Zisk and Gibney went on several international location scouting missions, in order to give their fellow directors options to pick from for filming.

Casting
In January 2017, it was announced that Tahar Rahim was cast as one of the series' lead as Ali Soufan. In February 2017, Michael Stuhlbarg and Bill Camp were announced as series regulars and cast as Richard Clarke and Robert Chesney respectively. In March 2017, Jeff Daniels was cast as John O’Neill. Also announced that month were the castings of Sullivan Jones, Virginia Kull, Louis Cancelmi, Peter Sarsgaard, and Wrenn Schmidt as series regulars and Ella Rae Peck as a guest. In May 2017, Alec Baldwin was cast as George Tenet in a guest role.

Filming
The series began filming on May 3, 2017 in New York City and it was expected that shooting would take place in a number of locations around the world. Various places stood-in for the locales in which the story actually took place. For instance, scenes set in Yemen were filmed in Morocco, and drone and car travel shots of Pakistani landscapes were used to evoke Afghanistan. Johannesburg, South Africa served as the production base, and was where the bulk of filming took place. The city possessed the "visual variety" that the producers were seeking, and doubled for various places including Nairobi, Tanzania, England, Albania, and Las Vegas, Nevada. In August 2017, filming took place at the River Café in Brooklyn.

Marketing
On December 19, 2017, Hulu released the first preview of the series through a collection of images and a "first-look" video featuring interviews with the cast and crew. On January 11, 2018, Hulu released the first official trailer for the series.

Premiere
On January 19, 2018, it was announced that the series would have its international premiere at the annual Berlin International Film Festival in February 2018. The international premiere was eventually scheduled for February 20, 2018.

On February 13, 2018, The Washington Post held a screening of the first episode. Following the screening, journalist David Ignatius held a question-and-answer session with Jeff Daniels, Tahar Rahim, Peter Sarsgaard and Wrenn Schmidt, Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright, and Ali Soufan.

On February 15, 2018, the series had its official premiere at The Paris Theatre in New York City.

Distribution
In the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria, the series will be distributed by Amazon Video. The series will premiere on March 1, 2018 in the UK and subsequent episodes will arrive weekly for the following seven weeks. In Germany and Austria, the series will premiere on March 9.