Nipping at the heels of last week’s trailer reveal, NBC has now debuted the very first promo for Emerald City, one which reimagines a classic in rather spectacular fashion.
It’s a classic yarn that can be traced all the way back to L. Frank Baum’s original novel series, which began life with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. Back then, Baum’s spellbinding work remained the best-selling children’s book for two years straight, and through time various directors and storytellers have tapped into that legacy, resulting in the likes of Sam Raimi’s lavish prequel Oz the Great and Powerful and 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, arguably the most well-known adaptation of the lot.
Now, it’s almost time for Emerald City to join that bracket. Hailing from showrunner David Schulner (Do No Harm), there was a time early on in development where it looked certain that NBC had sentenced the adaptation to an early grave, first dropping plans altogether before circling back to the well and handing out a straight-to-series order.
After that dramatic U-turn, it didn’t take long for the pieces to start falling into place, as evidenced by the casting of Adria Arjona, as Dorothy Gale, Oliver Jackson-Cohen as the spineless Scarecrow and, perhaps most exciting of all, Jurassic World and Daredevil‘s Vincent D’Onofrio as the all-powerful wizard. It’s a cast brimming with promise, but the fact that Emerald City has been billed as a “modern and dark” take on Oz may prove a turn-off for some.
Emerald City comes calling on Friday, January 6. Tell us, will you be checking in on NBC’s spinoff series early next year? Do let us know.
In the blink of a tornado’s eye, 20-year-old Dorothy Gale and a K9 police dog are swept into a world far removed from our own – a mystical land of competing realms, lethal warriors, dark magic and a bloody battle for supremacy. Starring Vincent D’Onofrio (Daredevil, Jurassic World) as the guileful Wizard and directed by the visionary Tarsem Singh across three European countries, this is Oz completely reimagined – a place where familiar characters show up in fresh, unexpected ways, and where an unsuspecting young woman holds the fate of kingdoms in her hands. And as Dorothy navigates this dangerous world and uncovers her true destiny, we’ll see there’s no place like…Oz.
