The Staircase was originally a true-crime docuseries on Netflix that captivated audiences and now the Colin Firth and Toni Collette led HBO Max series about the death of Kathleen Peterson and the trial that then happened and subsequent conviction of her husband Michael Peterson for her murder. We got our first trailer for the series today and while it is obviously different in tone from the docuseries, we do get a glimpse into the case that captivated audiences.

The cast is also incredibly impressive outside of Firth and Collette is Michael Stuhlbarg, Juliette Binoche, Dane DeHaan, Olivia DeJonge, Rosemarie DeWitt, Tim Guinee, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sophie Turner, Vincent Vermignon, Odessa Young, and Parker Posey.

The series is created by Antonio Campos and co-produced by Annapurna Television. Campos also serves as Executive Producer as well as showrunner alongside Maggie Cohn. He also directed six of the episodes for the series with Leigh Janiak directing two.

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Image via HBO Max

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What's so interesting about the trailer is that we get to see Peterson's decision to film a documentary about his court case at the same time as the trial. He was supposedly a grieving widower, yet he was worried about a documentary telling his story over clearing his own name. The 13 episode docuseries details the case, what Peterson told people happened, and how the community viewed the Peterson family.

The logline for the fictionalized series is as follows: "Based on a true story, The Staircase explores the life of Michael Peterson (Firth), his sprawling North Carolina family, and the suspicious death of his wife, Kathleen Peterson (Collette)." The trailer is clearly a dive into this twisting story that Peterson wove in the documentary as well as a hearty mix of facts and fabrications for the HBO series. All of that plays into this obsession that true-crime fans have with The Staircase as a story and the one that Peterson tried to sell to the public.

Despite being convicted for his wife's murder, Peterson is currently a free man, and it will be interesting to see how the show navigates what we know about him, the case, and the public perception of what happened all mixed into the fictionalized telling. Firth looks quite a bit like Peterson did in the docuseries and has his voice down perfectly, so it'll be interesting to see how the rest of the Peterson family is brought to life in the series and the justice it brings to Kathleen's story.