Baz Luhrmann Is Apparently Shopping A TV Series About The Dawn Of Hip-Hop In 1970s New York

If I were to make a list of things I did not expect to read on a Friday afternoon, “Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann is shopping a television series about the dawn of hip-hop in 1970s New York” would have been pretty close to the top, possibly between “Montana invaded Idaho just to see if anyone would notice” and “The dog from Dog With A Blog scored his first Golden Globe nomination yesterday,” but here we are. According to Vulture, the Australian director is working with Shawn Ryan (The Shield, Terriers), and the two have already pitched the project to Netflix, FX, and Amazon, with more meetings scheduled in the near future.

Here’s the description, per Vulture’s sources:

The series will tell the stories of five young New Yorkers, with a focus on two best friends: one a talented writer, the other a natural performer. A person who’s heard the pitch described the series as a coming-of-age story at heart, as well as a look at how hip-hop was born. Episodes may flash forward to reveal the fates of the central two characters. The grim state of New York City at the time — high crime, the city’s financial crisis — also sounds like it might be a character of sorts.

Luhrmann and Ryan seem like strange bedfellows on paper, stylistically, seeing as the former is known for his grand, spectacular cinematography, and latter created one of the best gritty crime dramas of the past 10-15 years, but if they can take the best parts of each other and smush them together around a story about the early days of hip-hop, then, yes, this has the potential to be very, very interesting.

Take us home, Kurtis.

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