UPDATE, May 16, 1:30 p.m. ET: The Knick will premiere Aug. 8.

Though director Steven Soderbergh — the mastermind behind Behind the Candelabra, Erin Brockovich, Traffic and Ocean's Eleven — is taking a break from film-making, he's been busy getting his hands dirty on a medical miniseries for Cinemax.

The 10-episode drama, The Knick, will premiere this summer with Soderbergh at the helm and Clive Owen as its lead character. The story will take place at the onset of the 1900s.

In this teaser shared first with Mashable, Cinemax has given us the first look at Owen's portrayal of John W. Thackery, a New York City doctor at Knickerbocker Hospital.

Starting Sunday, Cinemax will begin televising the teaser, narrated by Owen.

"We live in a time of endless possibility — more has been learned about the treatment of the human body in the last five years than was learned in the previous 500," Owen's character says in the clip. "That is where we'll start unlocking the mystery."

Steven Soderbergh's medical drama will tell the story of surgeons, nurses and staff at NYC's Knickerbocker. Image: Cinemax for Mashable

The series will follow the hospital's surgeons, nurses and staff, Cinemax announced last year, "in a time of astonishingly high mortality rates and zero antibiotics."

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