New Netflix Thriller 'The I-Land' Serves Up a Survival-of-the-Fittest Battle on a Tropical Island

It looks like 'Lost' meets 'The Hunger Games' — and it drops this month.
Sarah Ward
September 01, 2019

Survivor, but a fictional thriller. Fyre Festival, turned extra savage. The Hunger Games meets Lost. Any survival-of-the-fittest scenario ever seen on screen (and there have been plenty), relocated to kind of scenic place usually reserved for tropical holidays. Throw in a bit of Westworld and The Matrix as well, and all of these descriptions seem to apply to Netflix's upcoming series The I-Land. Here, ten people wake up on an island with no memory of how they got there, or even who they are, only to find themselves forced to work through psychological and physical challenges — or die.

Releasing on the streaming platform this month, the limited series stars Kate Bosworth (Blue Crush), Natalie Martinez (Under the Dome), Alex Pettyfer (Magic Mike) and Kyle Schmid (Being Human), and will unravel its twists and turns over seven episodes. It shouldn't come as a surprise that nothing will be as it seems on this mysterious island — that's the entire premise — with the stranded folks all grappling with their best and worst tendencies in their quest to survive.

Based on the just-dropped trailer, the show may just continue a trend that seems to be getting stronger on Netflix, taking cues from a heap of other hugely successful movies and TV series, cobbling them together into one new package and endeavouring to attract the widest possible audience as possible. That's not just a cynical view, with the service's algorithm already designed to serve up suggestions based on your viewing habits — and it's obviously using that data to inform what kinds of programs to make next.

Given the huge success of Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened when it released on Netflix earlier this year, transforming that concept into a thriller is a logical next step — as the show's first teaser toyed with.

Check out the initial teaser online and the new trailer below:

The I-Land hits Netflix on September 12.

Image: Courtesy of Netflix.

Published on September 01, 2019 by Sarah Ward
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