Captain Nemo swashbuckles his way under the sea in Nautilus trailer

Captain Nemo is one of 19th-century French novelist Jules Verne's most captivating fictional characters, appearing in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1875). Prime Video is bringing us a 10-episode series exploring Nemo's origin story, loosely based on the former, called Nautilus, premiering in a couple of weeks. The official trailer just dropped, and it has all the swashbuckling, deep sea diving adventures, and exotic sea creatures one would expect from a classic Verne tale—including that infamous giant squid and a plucky romantic interest for good measure. (Minor spoilers for the novels below.) In Verne's novels, Nemo is a mysterious figure also known as Prince Dakkar, who lost his kingdom and his family in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He devotes himself to science and builds an electrically powered submersible ship called the Nautilus, salvaging gold bullion from shipwrecks to fund his travels, occasionally coming to the aid of people in need (a pearl diver under a shark attack or castaways in need of rescue). He is well-read, has a Western education, and is fluent in several languages, as well as being a gifted engineer. And he appreciates the fine arts. The same broad outlines seem largely intact in the depiction of Nemo in the TV series Nautilus. Disney+ originally commissioned the British adventure drama and tapped James Dormer as showrunner, but it decided not to move forward after filming was complete. AMC and Prime Video stepped in and acquired distribution rights in the US and Canada (AMC) and the UK and Ireland (Prime Video). The 10-part series is set in 1857, when the power of the British East India Company was at its peak, bolstered by its own private army and navy. The Company is secretly building a massive submersible ship in Kalpani, India, using slave labor from the colonial prisons. Nemo (Shazad Latif, who played Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery) is among those prisoners and just happened to design the engine of the Nautilus, so he knows his way around the ship.

Nemo orchestrates an uprising and escapes to sea with the Nautilus. The East India Company naturally sends its own forces in hot pursuit to reclaim their submersible and execute Nemo. Meanwhile, "Nemo and his motley crew sail beneath the seas on a mission of retribution and vengeance to utterly destroy the power of the Company... and the Company itself." In addition to Latif, the cast includes Georgia Flood as Humility Lucas; Thierry Fremont as Gustave Benoit; Pacharo Mzembe as Boniface; Damian Garvey as Director Crawley; Richard E. Grant as the leader of the Karajaan; Cameron Cuffe as Captain Pitt; Jacob Collins-Levy as Captain Youngblood; and Luke Arnold as Captain Billy Millais. Anna Torv will guest-star in the penultimate episode as Revna. Nautilus debuts on Prime Video on October 25, 2024.