Alex Rider the TV series: When is released? Who is in the cast? All you need to know

Amazon Prime Video will be the UK home of the highly anticipated Alex Rider TV series.

Alex Rider is the hero of smash hit best-selling book franchise, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

The books, a series of coming-of-age spy thrillers, are written by Alex Horowitz. The author is best known for other young adult fiction series, The Power of Five and The Diamond Brothers, and has previously written for TV series including Foyle’s War, Collision, New Blood, Poirot and Midsomer Murders.

This new TV series will be based on the second Alex Rider novel, Point Blanc.

What is Alex Rider?         

Alex Rider is a London-based teenager who has unknowingly been trained since childhood for the dangerous world of espionage.

Pressured to help investigate his uncle’s death and its links to the assassinations of two high-profile billionaires, Alex reluctantly assumes a new identity and goes undercover in a remote boarding school called Point Blanc.

Isolated high in the French Alps, Point Blanc claims to set the troubled teenage children of the ultra-rich back onto the right track. As Alex digs deeper, he discovers the students are in fact the subjects of a disturbing plan which Alex will have to risk his life to stop.

 “I was thrilled to hear that Prime Video will introduce the Alex Rider TV series to fans,” said franchise author Anthony Horowitz. 

“This is such a huge, popular platform and feels like a natural home for the series. I hope that this is the start of a long creative partnership… with another 12 books ready to go!”

Watch the trailer

When is Alex Rider released?

All eight episodes will be available to stream on Prime Video from June 4.

“At a time when the world is looking for heroes, who better to come to our aid than Alex Rider?” said Wayne Garvie, from the series producers Sony Pictures Television.

“We’re thrilled that Amazon Prime Video will be the place for Brits to watch one of their great local heroes take on global evil.”

Who is in the Alex Rider cast?

Alex Rider will be played by rising star Otto Farrant, who has previously appeared in the Ruth Wilson drama Mrs Wilson, War and Peace, ITV thriller Marcella and the movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

Joining Otto is an all-star cast including Game of Thrones actor Stephen Dillane as Alan Blunt, the commander of the secretive MI6 offshoot The Department, and Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure as Blunt’s second in command, Mrs Jones.

Ace Bhatti (Line of Duty), Andrew Buchan (Broadchurch), Brenock O’Connor, Ronke Adékoluéjó and Marli Siu are also in the cast.

Has Alex Rider been adapted before?

The book series was turned into a video game, Alex Rider: Stormbreaker in 2006.

It was also turned into a 2006 film, Stormbreaker, starring Alex Pettyfer, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Damian Lewis, Alicia Silverstone and Mickey Rourke.

This is the first Alex Rider TV series.