Posted in: Movies | Tagged: emerald city, entertainment, film, Josh Freidman, Matthew Arnold, nbc, Universal Television

NBC Throw Water On Plans For Emerald City

If you made it down to San Diego for this years Comic Con, you would have seen that just about any available space in the city was covered with advertising. Every bus, train and pedi-cab and a graphic on it hyping everything from Gotham to the Black List. There was one pedi-cab whose seat looked like the Iron Throne. For those who were there and all the images and colors didn't turn into a Jackson Pollock kaleidoscope of imagery, you may remember this bus ad:

Now this would seem to tell me that at some point next year I'd be able to turn on NBC and find a show called Emerald City. Turns out… not so much.

Word has come out that NBC has opted not to proceed with the 10-episode Oz-themed drama series. The show was conceived by Matthew Arnold who wrote the pilot, while Josh Freidman tweaked the script and has been running the writer's room. The rumor is that there was a difference in vision between NBC and Freidman over what the show should be. It's also said that several backup scripts had been produced already.

The concept was a series based on L. Frank Baum's 14-book Oz series in more of a Game Of Thrones style tale featuring lethal warriors, competing kingdoms and the wizard like we'd never seen him before. Universal Television, which developed the project, is said to still be high on the concept and may shop it around for a new home.

This does seem pretty far into the process to pull the plug on a series, but it's not quite as far as FOX recently cancelling their new series Heiroglyph after the pilot had been filmed and backup scripts written and advertising for it as part of their fall lineup had been done.

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