John Lithgow is set for a lead role opposite Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany in Perry Mason, HBO’s limited series from Team Downey.

Written and executive produced by Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald, who also will showrun, the reimagined Perry Mason is set in 1932 Los Angeles. While the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression, this city is booming! Oil! Olympic Games! Talking Pictures! Evangelical Fervor! And a child kidnapping gone very, very wrong! Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, this limited series follows the origins of American fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason (Rhys). When the case of the decade breaks down his door, Mason’s relentless pursuit of the truth reveals a fractured city and just maybe, a pathway to redemption for himself.

Lithgow will play Elias Birchard “E.B.” Jonathan, a personal attorney at the nadir of his career and a semi-regular employer of private investigator Mason. A mentor and a father figure to Mason, E.B. is handed the kind of case he hasn’t seen in years: a high-profile parallel investigation to the LAPD involving a child kidnapping.

Robert and Susan Downey, who developed the project, executive produce along with Team Downey’s Amanda Burrell, and Joe Horacek. Rhys produces. Tim Van Patten directs and executive produces.

Tony and six-time Emmy winner Lithgow’s upcoming film projects include Mindy Kaling’s comedy Late Night, The Tomorrow Man opposite Blythe Danner, as well as Paramount’s remake of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. Lithgow also will play Roger Ailes in the upcoming untitled Charles Randolph project about the Ailes culture at Fox News. Lithgow won his latest Emmy for his role as Winston Churchill in The Crown and recently starred in NBC comedy series Trial & Error.

2019 HBO Pilots & Series Orders