AMC orders martial arts drama Badlands to series
AMC has ordered six, one-hour episodes of Badlands, a martial arts drama that is not related to Bruce Springsteen’s greatest song. According to the studio’s press release, Badlands is “very loosely” based on Journey To The West, a Chinese story that is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. A warrior and a boy journey west, across a land controlled by unsympathetic nobles, to seek enlightenment.
The idea was developed by Al Gough and Miles Millar, who worked together on Smallville and Shanghai Noon (and are, incidentally, also working on the upcoming Shannara for MTV, which was also announced today). Martial arts choreographers Daniel Wu and Stephen Fung are also attached to the project.
The network is ordering Badlands straight to series, without seeing a pilot. Badlands will air late 2015 or early 2016. As there are no photos for something that does not exist yet, the above is from the poster for a Chinese-language adaptation of Journey To The West, directed by Stephen Chow, which was released in America in March. It’s a cool poster.