Disney+’s upcoming Zorro series is one step closer to its small-screen debut. More than a year after the project was confirmed to be in the works, Deadline reported Monday that Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman has signed on to serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Cogman will executive produce alongside That ’70s Show star Wilmer Valderrama, who is set to star in the titular role, as well as Gary Marsh and John Gertz.
Cogman, of course, is no stranger to TV viewers. Prior to joining the upcoming Zorro project, he spent 10 years and eight seasons on HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones. Cogman ended the series as co-executive producer and wrote 11 of the show’s 73 episodes, including the Season 8 episode “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, with his work on the series earning him our Emmy Awards, a Hugo Award, a Producer’s Guild of America Award, and 7 Writer’s Guild Award nominations. He also served as consulting producer on the first season of Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and has written the screenplay for Disney’s upcoming remake of The Sword in the Stone.
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A reimagining of the Disney-ABC Zorro series starring Guy Williams that aired in the 1950s, the new Zorro project (working title) was originally reported as being in development in December 2021. Described as “a bold reimagining of Disney’s classic series for a modern audience” and an “epic adventure rooted in California’s rich and diverse history, bursting with humor, sinister intrigue, romantic entanglements, and swashbuckling thrills,” Zorro stars Valderrama as Diego de la Vega, who returns to his hometown of El Pueblo de Los Angele after tragedy strikes his family. Once there, he “discovers a culture of corruption and injustice that will lead him to take on the mantle of the masked vigilante Zorro – America’s first true superhero,” per the official logline.
Zorro was created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley and is considered a precursor to the modern superhero. The original classic Disney series, available for streaming on Disney+, ran two seasons, with 78 half-hour episodes, from Oct. 10, 1957, to July 2, 1959. Guy Williams took on the titular role, with Gene Sheldon, George J. Lewis, and Henry Calvin also starring. The new Zorro series will be the latest addition to the Zorro library, which also includes films like The Mark of Zorro (1940), Mark of Zorro (1920), The Mask of Zorro (1998), and The Legend of Zorro (2005). A premiere date for the series has not been announced.
