WATCH: Florence Kasumba Is The Wicked Witch in NBC’s New Drama ‘Emerald City’

NBC has released a trailer for its upcoming drama, Emerald City.  The series stars Florence Kasumba as the iconic Wicked Witch of the East alongside Adria Arjona as Dorothy, Vincent D’Onofrio as the Wizard, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Lucus, the Scarescrow.

Emerald City is a A 10-episode, re-imagining of the classic film Wizard of Oz that revolves around 20 year old Dorothy Gale (Arjona) who is transported to another world where an all-powerful wizard has forbidden magic and rules over many kingdoms.  This is the fabled Land of Oz in a way you’ve never seen it before, where lethal warriors roam, wicked witches plot in the shadows and a young girl from Kansas becomes a headstrong heroine who holds the fate of their world in her hands. Emerald City sees Dorothy transported by tornado along with a K9 police dog into a mystical land of competing realms, lethal warriors, dark magic and a bloody battle for supremacy.

Kasumba hails from Uganda and has been filming in English, German, and Dutch since 2000.  She has been featured in foreign films such as Ik ook van jou and Tatort – Borowski und das Meer, and was on the television series The Quest, a fantasy/reality series where contestants engage in challenges in the world of “Everealm.”  Most recently, Kasumba appeared in Captain America: Civil War which hit theaters last month.  With such an eclectic background, we can only imagine the magic that she will bring to the fantasy world of Emerald City.

Emerald City was put on a shelf last August due to creative differences between executive producer/writer Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and NBC; however, in April, the network revived the project with David Schulner (The Event) taking over as showrunner. Shaun Cassidy (American Gothic, Invasion) will serve as executive producer alongside Schulner.  Emerald City is a production of Universal Television, and will premiere on NBC on January 7th.