The Player,' Starring Wesley Snipes, Gets First Trailer From NBC

Two years ago, NBC released the first trailer for The Blacklist to enormous fan fair mostly fueled by the gravitas of James Spader’s performance as the mysterious Red Reddington. From that moment on, NBC spent the summer leading up to the show’s premiere by marketing it as much as possible through the appearance of Spader and his impeccably dressed character, who appeared in every TV spot and poster that was placed within the eye line of potential audience members. Now, in order to see if lighting can strike twice, the network has opted to go that route again for one of its newest dramas, The Player.

Starring Wesley Snipes and Strike Back’s Philip Winchester, the series is created by John Rogers (Leverage) and executive produced by John Davis, John Fox and Bharat Nalluri and follows a “former military operative turned security expert who is drawn into a high-stakes game where an organization of wealthy individuals gamble on his ability to stop some of the biggest crimes imaginable from playing out.”

The first thing that immediately strikes the audience as interesting in this trailer is the fact that Snipes’ performance is being kept to a limited amount of screentime, but the parts he appears in are all top-notch. It really feels like NBC is trying to sell the action of the series more than its actors, and that makes sense when the network hired one of the leads of the best action series on television, Strike Back, to star in it (something they also did for Blindspot with the show’s other lead, Sullivan Stapleton). However, as the summer progresses, it won’t be surprising to see Snipes dominate most of the marketing as we get closer to the show’s fall premiere.

The Player can’t be sold on “from the creator of Leverage,” nor on the star power of Winchester. Ultimately the make or break element of this show is Snipes. He may not be the box-office draw he once was, but television audiences are still living in a place of star-driven media. Given that, there’s reason to believe that with the help of the former Blade star, The Player could be taken to a place of great success… but the high levels of action and equal amounts of shirtless Winchester don’t hurt either when it comes to selling the show across multiple demographics – much like the marketing of the modern Fast & Furious franchise.