Peter Jackson unveils his latest fantasy epic in the Mortal Engines trailer

The first trailer for Peter Jackson’s presumed franchise starter Mortal Engines premiered online earlier today, after playing in front of Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi in select theaters this past weekend. Based on Philip Reed’s quartet of novels, the film is set in a post-apocalyptic steampunk version of Earth where it is somehow more efficient for entire cities to travel the wastelands in search of resources, rather than building new cities in resource-rich areas like humanity did the first time. Regardless, the biggest and most voracious of these cities is jolly old London, which swallows a smaller town, and all the humans on board, whole in this initial trailer.

Anyway, Mortal Engines, which based on this abbreviated first look appears to be a hybrid of Howl’s Moving Castle and the Mad Max series, is set to debut in December 2018.