Award-winning actor Željko Ivanek joined The Walking Dead universe in the first season of the Maggie and Negan spinoff, The Walking Dead: Dead City. He will once again appear in the second season that AMC will release in Spring 2025. Later this year, Ivanek will appear in the Netflix limited series Death by Lightning.
Executive producers David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Bernie Caufield who are known for the Netflix series 3 Body Problems, join creator and showrunner Mike Makowksy (Bad Education) in an adaptation of the 2011 novel by Candice Millard, , Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.
Death by Lighting is a limited drama series which chronicles the stranger than fiction story of the 20th President of the United States, Jams Garfield and his assassin Charles Guiteau. The over all story is not unlike politics in the modern age where the US government is ripe with corruption.
Ivanek portrays a man named Doctor Bliss, whose history has taught us that his given first name was, in fact, Doctor. A pseudo-expert treating gunshot wounds cared for the President until his death two and a half months after the shooting.
Michael Shannon portrays the 20th president with Matthew Mcfadyen as his biggest fan and assassin, Charles Guiteau. Nick Offerman stars as Chest A. Author, the former vice president who would become the 21st President of the US after Garfield's death. Betty Gilpin portrays First Lady Lucretia Garfield, with Bradly Whitford as James Blaine and Shea Whigham as Roscoe Conkling.
No official release date as been set but Netflix expects Death by Lightning to release before the end of 2025.
In Death by Lightning, Michael Shannon plays James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, and Matthew Macfadyen plays the man who would come to kill him.
— Netflix (@netflix) January 30, 2025
Here’s your first look at this epic, stranger than fiction true story also starring Nick Offerman and Betty… pic.twitter.com/VDrT5u3dq9
Death by Lightning Cast
- Michael Shannon (George & Tammy, Waco, Nocturnal Animals) will play James Garfield.
- Matthew Macfadyen (Succession, Deadpool 3, Operation Mincemeat) will play Charles Guiteau.
- Betty Gilpin (American Primeval, GLOW, Mrs. Davis) will play first lady Crete Garfield.
- Nick Offerman (The Last of Us, Parks and Recreation, Fargo) will play Vice President Chester Arthur.
- Bradley Whitford (The Handmaid’s Tale, Get Out, The West Wing) will play Secretary of State James Blaine.
- Shea Whigham (Joker, Take Shelter) will play Senator Roscoe Conkling.
- Paula Malcomson (Deadwood, Ray Donovan) will play Franny Scoville, sister of Charles Guiteau.
- Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey, Mank) will play Kate Chase Sprague.
- Archie Fisher (Steve, Last Days of John Allen Chau) will play Joe Brown.
- Barry Shabaka Henley (Forever, Bob Hearts Abishola) will play Senator Blanche Bruce.
- Željko Ivanek (Damages, Walking Dead: Dead City) will play Dr. Bliss.
- Kyle Soller (Andor, Bodies) will play Robert Todd Lincoln.
- Ben Miles (The Crown, Napoleon) will play George Scoville.
- Vondie Curtis-Hall (Harriet) will play Frederick Douglass.
- Shaun Parkes (Small Axe: Mangrove) will play Dr. Charles Purvis.
- Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager, Sex Education) will play John Sherman.
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