One of Ray Liotta’s final projects before his death is coming to Apple TV+. The streaming service unveiled the first trailer for the upcoming psychological thriller series Black Bird on Wednesday, starring Liotta as a disappointed father to a troubled Taron Egerton.
The trailer opens with the voice of the late actor speaking to his son Jimmy Keene, played by Egerton, now in prison.
“I never wanted this for you,” Liotta says as Big Jim. “I wanted a totally different life. A steady paycheck. Kids. A family.”
“Dad. Tell me there’s a way out of this,” Keene responds. “Not a quick one,” Big Jim replies.
The limited series, which comes out July 8, is adapted from the true-crime memoir In With The Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption by James Keene and Hillel Levin.
“Inspired by actual events, when high school football hero and decorated policeman’s son Jimmy Keene (Egerton) is sentenced to 10 years in a minimum-security prison, he is given the choice of a lifetime — enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and befriend suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Hauser), or stay where he is and serve his full sentence with no possibility of parole,” a description of the show reads.
The trailer teases Keene’s difficult decision to either stay in prison or attempt to get a confession from Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) in exchange for his freedom.
“You want me to check into hell and befriend the demon? Not for all the money in the world.” Keene says, before the female official responds, “How about freedom?”
Hauser’s character as Hall is hella scary. He speaks in a high-pitched voice and is seen mopping the floors with some bloodied water.
The film is one of Liotta’s final projects to debut following his death on May 26 in the Dominican Republic. He was in the Caribbean shooting Dangerous Waters and finished shooting the film Cocaine Bear before he died.
Over a career that spanned 40 years, Liotta specialized in portraying tough-talking, no-nonsense characters often embroiled in the criminal underworld or lighthearted variations of that character in comedies.