Emma Watson and Tom Hanks star in ominous trailer for tech thriller The Circle

Emma Watson and Tom Hanks share an chilling vision of the future in the ominous first trailer for ‘The Circle’, James Ponsoldt’s upcoming adaptation of Dave Eggers’ hugely popular novel.

Watson stars as Mae Holland, a young woman who lands a job at The Circle – the world’s most powerful tech company – as it begins to impose its philosophy of openness on society.

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Hanks plays one of The Circle’s founders, Bailey, a charismatic presence and frontman who seems to be half-Mark Zuckerberg and half-Steve Jobs.

The trailer starts with Mae’s interview, in which she explains what The Circle is, before we see Bailey delivering a keynote presentation during which he introduces a new Circle product: a small camera that captures and streams live video easily and constantly.

Indie darling Ponsoldt, best known for ‘The Spectacular Now’, has assembled an impressive cast, with John Boyega, Karen Gillan, Bill Paxton, Patton Oswalt and ‘Boyhood’s Ellar Coltrane joining Hanks and Watson.

There’s certainly a very deliberate ‘Black Mirror’ vibe to the trailer, which is understandable given the subject matter but having read the source material we can safely say the story here rivals anything from the Channel 4 and Netflix series.

USA Today revealed the trailer, alongside an interview with the director.

“The Circle is probably like many tech companies, pushing the ethical boundaries over how much autonomy and freedom we should have and how much privacy we should have,” Ponsoldt said.

“When Dave’s book came out [in 2013], it felt like speculative fiction, the future around the corner. But shooting it, we thought of it as an alternaverse: slightly skewed, but essentially our world.

“It’s a fun ride. We live through Mae. She is us. You will walk out of the theater and have a serious look at yourself and how you’re living your life.”

‘The Circle’ is set to be released on 28 April, 2017.