Last year, fan favorite comic book writers Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick announced that they had signed a two-year overall deal with Universal Television that would allow their production company Milkfed Criminal Masterminds to develop some of their award-winning comics as well as other comic creators’ books for television. Since then, we learned that ‘Sex Criminals’ and ‘The Wicked + The Divine’ would be the first projects developed under that deal. However, both heads of House DeFraction also began to dabble in other TV projects as well to sort of prepare for their work in this relatively new medium for them. In the past, Fraction had written an episode of ‘DaVinci’s Demons’, but now it’s the leader of the Carol Corps’ turn to flex her writing muscles.
According to Bleeding Cool, DeConnick made an announcement at the Milkfed Criminals panel at Heroes Con that she has been working on episodes of ‘Emerald City’. The upcoming NBC fantasy drama based on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and directed by ‘The Cell’ and ‘Mirror Mirror’ filmmaker Tarsem Singh finds the characters made famous by L. Frank Baum’s acclaimed books and the 1939 film reimagined in a dark, edgy way where, as DeConnick puts it, “Dorothy has a machine gun and Toto is a German Shephard”. The show stars ‘True Detective’ and ‘Person of Interest’ star Adria Arjona as Dorothy Gale and Vincent D’Onofrio as The Wizard, as well as Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ana Ularu, Gerran Howell, Joely Richardson, Jordan Loughran, Mido Hamada, and Florence Kasumba.
For more information on the series, here’s the official synopsis:
In the blink of a tornado’s eye, 20-year-old Dorothy Gale and a K9 police dog are swept into a world far removed from our own – a mystical land of competing realms, lethal warriors, dark magic and a bloody battle for supremacy. Starring Vincent D’Onofrio as the guileful Wizard and directed by the visionary Tarsem Singh across three European countries, this is Oz completely reimagined – a place where familiar characters show up in fresh, unexpected ways, and where an unsuspecting young woman holds the fate of kingdoms in her hands. And as Dorothy navigates this dangerous world and uncovers her true destiny, we’ll see there’s no place like… Oz.
While we don’t know which of the ten episodes DeConnick has contributed to, she did mention at the panel that she got to write for D’Onofrio, who many will remember from his excellent performances in ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Daredevil’. With plenty of time before ‘Emerald City’ debuts during the midseason, we may find this information out through press releases and such. Otherwise, we’ll just have to pay close attention when the credits roll later this year.
What do you think about Kelly Sue DeConnick joining the writing team for ‘Emerald City’? Are you excited to see her work on network television? And do you think that the show will measure up to her awesome work on ‘Pretty Deadly’, ‘Bitch Planet’, or ‘Captain Marvel’? Sound off in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
