Actor Shawn Hatosy had a number of hits early in his career, thanks to movies like The Faculty and Outside Providence, and he’s kept himself busy with a variety of projects in the decades since. Most recently, he’s found another major hit in HBO Max’s The Pitt, where he stars as Dr. Jack Abbot alongside Noah Wyle’s Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. Before scrubbing into the medical drama, though, Hatosy starred as Andrew “Pope” Cody in the six-season Animal Kingdom TV show on TNT. Potentially due to Hatosy’s newfound attention in The Pitt, Animal Kingdom is becoming a hot commodity on Netflix, where it is currently #5 on the service’s Top 10 chart of popular TV shows worldwide.
The TNT series occupied an interesting corner of TV, due to the timeline of its release. Premiering in 2016, this was a time when many audiences were looking to premium cable channels like HBO or Showtime to find compelling dramas, and while there were a number of streamers available, they hadn’t quite become the dominating force of content that they are considered today. In this sense, anything happening on a network like TNT was largely overlooked, regardless of the quality of these series.
Luckily, with Animal Kingdom becoming more accessible than ever, thanks to its Netflix availability, the program is earning the following it deserves.
A Fresh Spin on a Proven Story
With the Animal Kingdom TV series running for 75 episodes, the sprawling narrative is so expansive that some fans might not even know that it was based on an Australian movie. The 2010 movie from writer/director David Michôd stars a number of iconic Australian performers who have since gone on to earn major success in America, including Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, and Jacki Weaver.
The original movie is described:
Following the death of his mother, 17-year-old Joshua “J” Cody (James Frecheville) moves in with his doting grandmother, Smurf (Jacki Weaver), and her three criminal sons – the Cody boys. The eldest, “Pope” (Ben Mendelsohn), is an armed robber, in hiding from a cadre of renegade detectives. Then there’s Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), a successful but volatile drug dealer, and the youngest, Darren (Luke Ford), who naïvely follows his brothers’ lead. Just as Pope’s business partner and best mate, Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton), decides that he wants out, tensions between the Codys and the police explode. J finds himself at the center of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns his family upside down and throws him directly into the path of senior homicide detective, Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce).
The American series embraces a similar premise, though running for six seasons, it explores an extended storyline. Starring alongside Hatosy are Ellen Barkin, Scott Speedman, Ben Robson, Jake Weary (featured above), Finn Cole, Daniella Alonso, and Molly Gordon.
What Do Critics Think of ‘Animal Kingdom’?
The 2010 movie earned tremendous acclaim, as it scored 96% positive reactions from aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with most of the praise being focused on the performances. Jacki Weaver even scored an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
While the Animal Kingdom TV series earned positive reactions from critics, it wasn’t quite as overwhelming in praise, with Season 1 sitting at 76% positive and Season 2 earning 80% positive reviews. Proving that the show was largely overlooked in its initial run, Seasons 3-6 didn’t even earn enough reviews for the site to determine an official score. Similar to the movie upon which the series is based, the positive reactions mostly laud the performances.
Whether the series has entered the Top 10 worldwide charts because of the gripping drama or because many of its young stars spend much of their screen time shirtless is yet to be determined.
Animal Kingdom
- Release Date
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2016 – 2022
- Network
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TNT
- Showrunner
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Jonathan Lisco
- Directors
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John Wells, Nick Copus, Christopher Chulack, David Rodriguez, Shawn Hatosy, Larry Teng, Cherie Nowlan, Loren Yaconelli, Janice Cooke, Megan Griffiths, Mark Strand, Alex Zakrzewski, Batan Silva, Emmy Rossum, James Hanlon, J. Michael Muro, Karen Gaviola, Laura Belsey, Laura Innes, Regina King, Thomas Carter, Tim Southam, Michael Morris, Slick Naim
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Finn Cole
Joshua “J” Cody
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