Netflix picks up a series about Marco Polo with “sexual intrigue"

By Kevin McFarland | January 15, 2014 | 5:41pm

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Netflix continues to be a landing spot for series that stall at other networks. The streaming site saved a fourth season of The Killing after a second AMC cancellation, and now it's picked up the Weinstein Company's nine-episode series Marco Polo, which was formerly in development at Starz. The China-set series will focus on the 13th-century explorer and film in Malaysia. According to Variety, it's “replete with astonishing martial arts, sexual intrigue, political skullduggery, and spectacular battles.”

The creators behind Starz's pirate series Black Sails recently had to defend the gratuitous nudity that has become the calling card of the pay-cable network, and—with the slight distinction between New World pirates and Far East explorers—Marco Polo seems like it will cover similar ground, especially with pilot directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg set to helm the fifth Pirates Of The Caribbean film. Marco Polo will debut in late 2014.