Peacock's New Series 'Those About To Die' Has A Killer Cast

Period pieces, especially those set in Roman and Greek antiquity, tend to lean hard into British culture instead of knowing what those cultures were genuinely like. From I Claudius to Alexander The Great, sword and sandal shows and movies are angled to Anglophiles, including current shows like Domina on MGM+ or the recently canceled Britannia. Now Peacock is getting into the same genre with Those About To Die, a big-budget gladiator series headlined by Sir Anthony Hopkins (King Lear) as the real-life Roman Emperor Vespasian, who founded the Flavian dynasty.

Those About To Die is being billed as German director’s Roland Emmerich return to directing television for the first time since 2012. Known as the “Master of Disaster” in Hollywood, his hit films include Independence Day, Stargate, Godzilla, The Patriot, and The Day After Tomorrow. Peacock has been all in on this, giving the series a straight-to-series order without passing go or seeing a script or pilot episode. With Hopkins in the lead role, the streaming service is gunning for a new bid for a flagship drama since it hasn’t managed to land something that garnered awards interest since its launch in 2020.

The rest of the show's cast has also been announced, with filming for the series underway at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. The biggest name to be joining Hopkins is Game of Thrones’ Iwan Rheon, replacing the original cast member Lorenzo Richelmy (Marco Polo), who left the series due to scheduling issues. This will be Rheon’s second project with Emmerich in two years, as he also starred in the director’s adaptation of The Magic Flute, which is currently out in theaters in Europe.