Netflix’s Marco Polo will set sail in December, it was announced on Thursday.
The streaming service’s new original series, about the explorer’s adventures in Kublai Khan’s court in 13th century China, will be available on Dec. 12, 2014 at 12:01 a.m. PT.
The 10-episode drama, created by John Fusco (Young Guns II), stars Italian newcomer Lorenzo Richelmy as Marco and Benedict Wong as Kublai Khan. Beijing-born Zhu Zhu (Cloud Atlas) plays Marco’s love interest Kokachin. Joan Chen, Remy Hii, Olivia Cheng, Claudia Kim, Uli Latukefu, Chin Han and Tom Wu round out the cast.
Fusco, Harvey Weinstein and Electus’ Ben Silverman are among those executive producing the drama along with Dan Minahan (Game of Thrones, True Blood), who will also direct two episodes. The Weinstein Company is producing, with Electus executive producing.
Marco Polo has had a long journey to the small screen. It was originally developed at Starz, which picked up the drama straight to series in January 2012, but Starz released it back to The Weinstein Co. and Electus, which was then producing, when its attempts to film the series in China fizzled.
Aug. 28, 10:26 a.m. An earlier version of this story mistakenly listed Ben Silverman‘s Electus as one of Marco Polo‘s executive producers. The Hollywood Reporter regrets the error.
Sept. 3, 2:03 p.m. After changing this story to remove Electus’ production credits, this story has been corrected to include Electus and Ben Silverman’s credits. The Hollywood Reporter regrets the error.
