By Before the success of “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” helped turned HBO into a household name the world over, the premium cabler’s first foray into scripted dramatic television was Tom Fontana’s men’s prison drama “Oz”.
The groundbreaking series ran for six seasons from 1997-2003 and unfolded in the maximum-security Oswald State Correctional Facility in New York in a wing named ‘Emerald City’ filled with factions of prisoners.
As it was premium cable, coarse language, drug use, violence, frontal nudity, homosexuality, rape, ethnic division and religious conflict were all tackled in the series which launched or boosted the careers of numerous actors including J.K. Simmons, Christopher Meloni, Harold Perrineau, Ernie Hudson, Rita Moreno and more.
Now series regular Kirk Acevedo, who played inmate Miguel Alvarez across six seasons, has revealed a new YouTube short film from writer-creator Fontana titled “Zo” is in the works.
Dean Winters and Lee Tergesen, who played ultra-violent Ryan O’Reily and attorney-turned-inmate Tobias Beecher respectively, will co-star in the short titled “Oz after prison”.
Acevedo indicates that if the short gets “good buzz,” there’s a chance fans “might see a series”. Beecher and O’Reily were still alive at series end though Beecher’s fate was uncertain.
Frequent TV director Christoph Shrewe (“Mr. Robot,” “Criminal Minds”) will direct the upcoming short which will debut on YouTube on May 1st.
Source: Twitter
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