With the massive success of HBO's Game of Thrones, many new TV shows have followed in its footsteps with a kind of violent, sexy, historical flavor. We had History's Vikings premiere in 2013, Starz's Outlander this year and a whole bunch of other epic, historical fantasy dramas in between.
And now Netflix has one more to add to the list. The teaser trailer for the upcoming Netflix original series Marco Polo dropped today, and the show looks to promise as much sex, fighting and rock 'n' roll as Game of Thrones when it hits Instant Streaming on Dec. 12.
However, Marco Polo is grounded in a bit more history than Game of Thrones is, just a bit. In addition to inspiring a beloved pool game, the real Marco Polo was kind of a big deal. He was an Italian explorer who traveled to China in the 13th century and famously documented his adventures in his book Il Milione, which means "one million" in Italian.
And apparently, he had quite the adventurous time indeed, at least according to Marco Polo the series, which is based on the explorer's experience in Kublai Khan's court in 13th-century China. This teaser trailer shows us that we can expect sword fighting, beautiful women, romance, horses and whatever other crazy things Polo got himself into.
Marco Polo will star Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy in the title role, in addition to Prometheus' Benedict Wong, The Last Emperor's Joan Chen and Arrow's China Han.
In addition to Netflix, the series is also being produced by The Weinstein Company, although it was originally developed over at Starz, which seems to be trying to corner the market on these sort of historical fantasy shows with The White Queen, Da Vinci's Demons and Black Sails hitting the network in the last couple of years.
The premiere of Marco Polo in December will only add fuel to the fire in the competition between Netflix and HBO, who was once the only game in town in terms of highly-acclaimed TV dramas. Netflix has responded with its own batch of critically-acclaimed series, such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. HBO also recently announced that its streaming service HBO Go would have a standalone option starting in 2015, just like Netflix's Instant Streaming service. We'll have to wait and see whether Marco Polo or Game of Thrones reigns supreme in the next few months, but we know it will most definitely be an exciting battle to watch.
Photo Credit: Netflix
