Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman Join Army of Shadows

Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman have officially joined Army of Shadows, the six-part Channel 4 drama from The Day of the Jackal and MobLand creator Ronan Bennett. Channel 4 confirmed both additions on September 22, alongside seven more new cast members.

This is not a conventional television remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 film. Bennett’s series takes the resistance framework from Melville’s film and Joseph Kessel’s source novel, then relocates it to an occupied, near-future Great Britain.

No release date or character names for Sarandon and Colman have been announced.

Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman join a large ensemble

Sarandon and Colman join the four leads Channel 4 announced when production began in July: Paddy Considine, America Ferrera, Alex Hassell and Kit Harington.

The September announcement expands the ensemble further with Leila Farzad, Luther Ford, Amara Okereke, Patrick O’Kane, Anjli Mohindra, Ed Ashley and Zoë Telford. Channel 4 has not attached character names or descriptions to those new cast members, so their positions in the resistance story remain undisclosed.

Lisa Gunning is directing all six episodes. Her recent television work includes Black Doves and The Power. Alison Sterling is the series producer, while Bennett is among the executive producers alongside representatives from STUDIOCANAL and Two Cities Television.

The cast connects Bennett’s new drama to several of his recent projects. Considine appears in MobLand, whose second season returned in September, while Harington has also recently joined the expanding cast of HBO’s Harry Potter Season 2 as Gilderoy Lockhart. Colman separately plays Mrs. Bennet in Netflix’s upcoming Pride and Prejudice adaptation.

What the new Army of Shadows is actually adapting

Joseph Kessel’s 1943 novel and Melville’s film dramatize the French Resistance under Nazi occupation during World War II. Bennett is keeping the central idea of an underground resistance forming under occupation, but he is not retelling the same story in the same time and place.

Channel 4 describes the new setting as a near-future authoritarian Britain under de facto American occupation. The country still looks outwardly familiar, but a former British army officer known only as Berry begins building a covert resistance network.

The cell brings together ordinary people from different backgrounds, including a soldier, a student, a radiographer and a journalist. Opposing them are an authoritarian state, a minister determined to maintain order and an American intelligence operative named Jessie.

Those details establish the shape of the conflict without telling us which performers play Berry, Jessie or the other members of the network. Channel 4 has not publicly mapped the cast to the characters, and it would be premature to infer those roles from billing order.

The series has the support of the Melville family and Kessel estate

The official commission announcement says the project was developed with support from Jean-Pierre Melville’s family and the Kessel estate. STUDIOCANAL developed the series with Two Cities Television and holds the 1969 film in its catalog.

That connection makes the series an authorized reworking of the underlying material, but not a continuation of the film. Bennett is using its moral structure — secrecy, betrayal, patience, compromise and the personal cost of resistance — for a new fictional political scenario.

Channel 4 commissioned the drama in the UK alongside CANAL+, which ordered it for a footprint spanning more than 50 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia. STUDIOCANAL is handling international sales and worldwide distribution and says it will launch global sales at MIPCOM 2026.

That sales plan is not the same as a confirmed broadcaster or streaming service in every territory. No US platform has been announced in Channel 4’s current material.

When will Army of Shadows be released?

Channel 4 has not announced a premiere date or release window. Its July production update said filming had begun in Manchester, Liverpool, London and Paris, but neither that release nor the September cast announcement gives viewers a timetable.

The firm details for now are the six-episode order, Gunning directing the entire series, Bennett writing and creating it, and an ensemble that now includes Sarandon and Colman. The roles, first footage and release plan are still to come.