NBC GREENLIGHTS DRAMA SERIES "EMERALD CITY" AND MINISERIES "THE SLAP"

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - Jan. 19, 2014 - NBC has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order for "Emerald City," a reimagining of the classic Frank L. Baum books that have inspired everything from "The Wizard Of Oz" to "Wicked."

Based on the 14-book series that first created the wonderful - and treacherous - Land of Oz, "Emerald City" is a dramatic and modern reimagining of the tales that include lethal warriors, competing kingdoms, and the infamous wizard as we've never seen him before. A head-strong 20-year-old Dorothy Gale is unwittingly sent on an eye-opening journey that thrusts her into the center of an epic and bloody battle for the control of Oz.

Writer Matt Arnold and Josh Friedman will serve as executive producers. Universal Television is the production company.

NBC is also ordering eight episodes of the miniseries "The Slap," based on the critically-acclaimed Australian project of the same name that aired in 2011.

Written by Jon Robin Baitz ("The West Wing," "Brothers & Sisters") and also produced by Universal Television, "The Slap" is a complex family drama that explodes from one small incident where a man slaps another couple's misbehaving child. This seemingly minor domestic dispute pulls the family apart, begins to expose long-held secrets, and ignites a lawsuit that challenges the core American values of all who are pulled into it.

Baitz, who was a Pulitzer finalist for his semi-autobiographical play "A Fair Country," will write all episodes and executive produce with Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, Ted Gold and Tony Ayres.