Jason Bateman leads a middle-star cast of characters in HBO’s upcoming series, The Outsider. The trailer for the show is subdued, eerie, and yet manages to capture the old-fashioned sense of mystery, intrigue, and thrills without giving anything away.

The gist of the story is that Bateman plays a middle-aged man accused of murdering a child. His prints are all over the crime scene but the video footage places him 60 miles from where the crime was committed.

Ben Mendelsohn plays a detective working the case, conflicted about what the evidence is showing him and what the facts are depicting.

The trailer does a fine job of hinting at something more taking place without going off the deep end into horror or the supernatural. It keeps everything grounded while throwing out a lot of clues about what could potentially unfold. You can check out the trailer below courtesy of Movie Trailers Source.

To me the best part about the trailer is the constant allusion toward the potentiality of Bateman’s character being both innocent and guilty.

Just when you think this is another Fugitive-style story they change it around and make it appear as if maybe, just maybe Bateman was guilty all along. But then they throw in the curve ball that he couldn’t be two places at once. And then they throw in another curve ball as if there could be another killer stalking about, and perhaps he was framed. But why?

This is a really good setup for a series, and it’s a shame that more marketers don’t take this approach to put together trailers to make films and television shows worth watching.

Then again, a large portion of the media that Hollywood produces is oftentimes converged anyway, so I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference if the trailers are bad if the content the trailers are based on is bad.

In any case, you can look for The Outsider to arrive on HBO starting in January, 2020.