Emerald City Bus - H 2014
@Snoodit/Lesley GoldbergThe straight-to-series model has claimed another victim.
NBC’s Wizard of Oz-themed drama Emerald City will not move forward, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
The drama went straight to series with a 10-episode pickup in January, with Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) attached to pen the script alongside Matt Arnold (Siberia), with Universal Television producing.
NBC has opted not to move forward with the project after the network and producers could not agree on a shared vision for the show. Studio Universal TV will likely shop the series to other potential suitors. The news comes after the network promoted the project in July at Comic-Con (photo above), with a major push for the drama, which had not yet begun casting.
Described as a “dramatic and modern reimagining,” Emerald City focuses on a headstrong 20-year-old — Dorothy Gale — unwittingly sent to Oz, where she finds herself at the center of an epic and bloody battle.
Emerald City joins Fox’s ancient Egyptian drama Hieroglyph as straight-to-series pickups that were dropped ahead of their premieres. In the case of the latter, the series was already fully cast and filmed a pilot.
Straight-to-series orders have become more commonplace of late as networks compete for high-profile fare in an increasingly crowded landscape of cable networks and streaming services developing original content.
Emerald City was one of a handful of projects in the works timed to the 75th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
