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Video: Here's The First Trailer For Baz Luhrmann's New 1970s NYC Show
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 6, 2016
Modified Jan 6, 2016
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 6, 2016
Modified Jan 6, 2016
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Baz Luhrmann is known for his lush, musical, over-the-top cinematic odes to excess and romance, whether adapting Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, or Lady Marmalade. His latest project won't be a 70mm jukebox musical take on The Aeneid or something like that though—instead, Luhrmann is hitting the small screen for musical drama The Get Down, an upcoming Netflix show focusing on a group of teens in the South Bronx in the 1970s. Check out the first trailer for the show below.
Here's the show's description, via The Hollywood Reporter:
The Get Down
will focus on 1970s New York — broken down and beaten up, violent, cash strapped, dying. Consigned to rubble, a rag-tag crew of South Bronx teenagers are nothings and nobodies with no one to shelter them — except each other, armed only with verbal games, improvised dance steps, some magic markers and spray cans. From Bronx tenements to the SoHo art scene; from CBGBs to Studio 54 and even the glass towers of the just-built World Trade Center, The Get Down is a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to hip-hop, punk and disco — told through the lives and music of the South Bronx kids who changed the city, and the world … forever.
Luhrmann will direct the first two episodes as well as the series finale, and will executive produce alongside Shawn Ryan (creator of the brilliant shows The Shield and Terriers). Grandmaster Flash will also serve as an associate producer and adviser on the drama.
This "mythic saga of the transformation of 1970s New York City" stars Jimmy Smits as Francisco "Papa Fuerte" Cruz, "a South Bronx political boss who delivers services to his constituents that the city has failed to provide, such as jobs, housing and healthcare." The large cast also includes Giancarlo Esposito, aka Gus from Breaking Bad.
Luhrmann previously spoke about his longtime interest in this project:
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 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 show will premiere later this year (date to be announced).
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baz luhrmann
netflix
South Bronx
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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