BBC AMERICA ANNOUNCES PREMIERE DATE FOR NEW DRAMA SERIES "THE MUSKETEERS" AND SEASON TWO PICK UP

Announced today, BBC AMERICA will premiere new co-production, The Musketeers, on Sunday, June 22 and has picked up the second season of the drama series for 2015.

A fresh and contemporary take on the classic Alexandre Dumas characters, The Musketeers is set on the streets of seventeenth century Paris, where law and order is an idea more than a reality. In addition to being King Louis XIII's personal bodyguards, Athos, Aramis and Porthos stand resolutely for social justice, honor, valor, love - and for the thrill of it. The series created by Adrian Hodges (My Week With Marilyn, Primeval) is made by BBC Drama Production for BBC One, co-produced by BBC AMERICA and BBC Worldwide. The 10-part first season premieres Sunday, June 22, 9:00pm ET.

Luke Pasqualino (Skins, The Borgias) stars as D'Artagnan alongside Tom Burke (Great Expectations, The Hour) as Athos, Santiago Cabrera (Merlin, Heroes) as Aramis and Howard Charles (Royal Shakespeare Company) as Porthos. Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, The Hour, The Thick Of It), Maimie McCoy (Loving Miss Hatto), Tamla Kari (Cuckoo, The Inbetweeners Movie) and Hugo Speer (Bedlam) also star in the series.

Additionally, viewers can expect to see guest cast including JJ Feild (Captain America: The First Avenger), Vincent Regan (Snow White and the Huntsman), Ashley Walters (Inside Men), Amy Nuttall (Downton Abbey), Tara Fitzgerald (Waking the Dead), Annabelle Wallis (X-Men: First Class), Zoe Tapper (Mr Selfridge), Vinnie Jones (Snatch) and Sean Pertwee (Elementary).

Jessica Pope (Quirke, Burton and Taylor, State Within) is the BBC executive producer, Adrian Hodges is an executive producer and lead writer, and Colin Wratten (Inside Men, Waking the Dead) is producer.

BBC AMERICA delivers U.S. audiences high-quality, innovative and intelligent programming. Established in 1998, it has been the launch pad for talent embraced by American mainstream pop culture, including Ricky Gervais, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Norton, and successful programming formats including ground-breaking non-scripted television like Top Gear and top-rated science-fiction like Doctor Who. Owned by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC AMERICA has attracted both critical acclaim and major awards including two Emmy(R) Awards, five Golden Globes(R) and eleven Peabody Awards. The channel attracts one of cable's most affluent and educated audiences and is available on cable and satellite TV in 80 million homes. It broadcasts in both standard and high-definition, with content available On Demand across all major digital platforms. Online, www.bbcamerica.com is the place to go to dig deeper into pop culture with a British twist.