While The Great Gatsby was stuffed with tunes, Baz Lurhmann hasn’t made a purely musical film since 2001’s Moulin Rouge!. He’s ready to channel his song-loving impulses into a TV show, as Netflix has commissioned a series called The Get Down.
Shawn Ryan, a man more known for shows such as The Shield and The Unit, is teaming up with the Australian director to work on the series, which they first dreamed up in 2013. They’ve already started on the 13 scripts for the first season and casting is underway.
The show is set in grungy, gritty, 1970s New York, a much tougher place to live than the law-abiding city it is today. In the South Bronx, a crew of teenagers who have no-one else to turn to find shelter and solace in each other, as they express their own musical abilities at a time when hip-hop, punk and disco are kicking off and pulsing through the culture.
Luhrmann will direct the first two episodes and the season finale, giving rise to the series’ visual trademarks and tone in much the same way that David Fincher launched House Of Cards. And his wife and regular collaborator Catherine Martin is also aboard to supervise the costumes and production design.
“In this golden era of TV, the Netflix culture puts no constraint on creative possibilities. So it is a natural home for The Get Down, a project I have been contemplating and working on now for over ten years,” Luhrmann tells Netflix. “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 series should hit the streaming service in 2016.