After Robert Downey Jr. Shares New Look At Perry Mason, The First Trailer Has Dropped

matthew rhys perry mason hbo 2020

Famed defense attorney Perry Mason is almost back on our screens with the Robert Downey Jr.-executive produced series set to debut on HBO this year. While the erstwhile Iron Man had been set to take on the part when this reboot was first proposed back in 2016, The Americans' Matthew Rhys took over the leading role duties last year. We've already seen some snippets of Rhys in action, but now proud producer papa Downey Jr. and HBO have both shared new trailer looks at what we can expect when the show finally hits the small screen.

Robert Downey Jr. took to social media to give hopeful viewers and fans another taste of Perry Mason, and it looks appropriately mysterious and gritty. Take a look at the video he posted to Twitter:

Ooooh...it's sorta spooky, right? While this bit of Perry Mason that Robert Downey Jr. shared with fans doesn't offer us too much info, it certainly seems like the titular attorney will be doing some poking around places he's not supposed to be, and we wouldn't have it any other way. How is he supposed to get his job done properly if he doesn't have all the information, right? As you may have noticed, that incredibly dramatic music also helped set the scene, so it would seem that we'll be in for quite a mystery when the series kicks off.

Even though this particular look at Matthew Rhys as the soon-to-be committed lawyer had an almost creepy air to it, Perry Mason is nothing if not grounded in reality. The show will be based on the characters from Erle Stanley Gardner’s novels (which, of course, had been previously adapted into a successful 1950s series starring Raymond Burr), and give us Perry Mason's origin story set against a backdrop of Los Angeles in 1932. You can see the first trailer for the upcoming show, below.

Hardly a legal superstar at this point, Mason is actually living check to check and working as a private investigator, while dealing with the trauma of his wartime experiences in France and the emotional impact of his broken marriage. Mason will end up investigating a kidnapping that went very wrong, and uncovering what actually happened while also "exposing a fractured city."

Lest you think this iteration of Perry Mason will be devoid of well-known actors beside Matthew Rhys, know that the series also stars Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), John Lithgow (The Crown), Chris Chalk (Gotham), Shea Whigham (Joker), Juliet Rylance (The Knick), and many more recognizable faces.

We don't know just yet how many episodes of Perry Mason we'll get, but it is coming to us this June, on the 21st in fact, as it marks one of HBO's projects that was already finished filming before stuff shut down.

For more on what you can watch on the small screen right now, be sure to check out our Netflix debut schedule and what's new on Hulu this month, as well as taking a look at everything that's been delayed or will be ending its season early, right here!

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.