Entertainment Weekly reported Thursday that Netflix has picked up Baz Luhrmann series "The Get Down" - a hip-hop musical drama set in New York in the 1970s. The online streaming service has ordered 13 episodes of the first season which will be produced by Sony Pictures TV.
Luhrmann will direct the first two episodes and the season finale. He will also executive produce the series alongside Shawn Ryan, Catherine Martin, Paul Watters, Thomas Kelly, Stephen Adley Guirgis, and Marney Hochman. Netflix stated that "The Get Down" will be "told through the lives and music of the South Bronx kids who changed the city and the world forever."
"From his very first and magnificently original steps on the world stage with Strictly Ballroom to his most recent with The Great Gatsby, Baz conjures worlds we may not recognize initially, but once there, realize they are infused with the same dreams of every person - to belong, to matter, to live life to its fullest," Cindy Holland, vice president of original content at Netflix, said in a statement.
"We are thrilled to support Baz, Catherine and Paul and their team in their quest to illuminate those same dreams through the artists who came of age in the cauldron of the Bronx in the late 1970s."
The show follows a group of South Bronx teenagers as they explore the "city's art and music scene as hip-hop, punk and disco begin to take form." The characters are armed with "verbal games, improvised dance steps, some magic markers, and spray cans." No cast has been announced.
"In this golden era of TV, the Netflix culture puts no constraint on creative possibilities," Luhrmann said in a statement. "So it is a natural home for The Get Down, a project I have been contemplating and working on now for over 10 years. Throughout, I've been obsessed with the idea of how a city in its lowest moment, forgotten and half destroyed, could give birth to such creativity and originality in music, art and culture. I'm thrilled to be working with my partners at Sony and collaborating with a team of extraordinary writers and musicians, many of whom grew up with and lived the story we've set out to tell."
"The Get Down" is expected to premiere in 2016.
