NBC suddenly revives reimagined 'Wizard of Oz' series 'Emerald City'

After Oz The Great And Powerful hit theaters in 2013, there was this sudden fad among the networks to begin developing Wizard of Oz-inspired projects. While none of these actually made it to air, NBC is reviving its idea, but as an event series instead.

In August 2013, at the height of the Oz craze, NBC bought Emerald City as a Game of Thrones-style version of L. Frank Baum’s beloved children’s books. However, exactly a year later, NBC cancelled the series.

Today, both TVLine and Entertainment Weekly reported that Emerald City has been revived with another 10-episode straight-to-series order. While the series was originally being written by Matthew Arnold and Josh Friedman, the peacock has hired David Schulner to rework it.

Schulner’s involvement shouldn’t give you any optimism for the project’s success. His previous NBC projects have all been short-lived efforts, including Dracula, Do No Harm and The Event.

Emerald City’s logline describes the series as a look at the Land of Oz “in a way you’ve never seen before, where wicked witches don’t stay dead for long and a young girl becomes a headstrong warrior who holds the fate of kingdoms in her hands.” Dorothy Gale is 20 in this series and Toto is actually a K9 police dog instead of a Cairn Terrier.

It’s worth noting that The Wiz is NBC’s 2015 live musical, so the network will probably use the musical to help promote Emerald City.

Other Oz ideas that never materialized are CBS’ medical drama and SyFy’s post-apocalyptic Oz series.

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