Baz Luhrmann’s recent work — really just The Great Gatsby and the assorted perfume commercials that look like The Great Gatsby — has been so intent on dazzling that it’s instead nauseated. (Many may argue that Moulin Rouge and R + J were likewise dizzying, but somehow the vaguely ill feelings they induced felt intentional and vital).
However, despite its clearly massive scope, the trailer for his newest project, the 70s musical drama series The Get Down, reveals that the director seems to have pared it down to a more palatable scale — or at least to have found the format and material that won’t buckle beneath his flair for the grandiose. (It’s an hourlong series told in parts; the first season is Part 1, and comprises 13 episodes).
Luhrmann’s anticipated series follows what Netflix PR calls a “rag tag group of teenagers” in an era where New York was “broken down and beaten up, violent, [and] cash strapped,” focusing on how, in these adverse conditions, residents coped and artistically resisted through music, leading to the births of hip-hop, punk and disco. The series takes us “from Bronx tenements, to the SoHo art scene from CBGB to Studio 54 and even the glass towers of the just-built World Trade Center.” It stars Dope‘s Shameik Moore, Paper Towns’ Justice Smith, Herizen Guardiola, Skylan Brooks, Tremaine Browne, Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jimmy Smits (Sons of Anarchy), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), and Jaden Smith (Twitter, Will/Jada).
The first nearly 3-minute trailer for the sweeping Bronx-centered drama will hold you captive from its first moments. The series will premiere on Netflix sometime later in 2016.
Watch the trailer:
Via Indiewire.