Fox has purchased a new urban fantasy series called The Magicians, which is based on a bestselling 2009 fantasy novel of the same name.
The novel, frequently described as “Harry Potter with sex and drugs” is about Quentin Coldwater and his friends at Brakebill, a college of magic in upstate New York.
While there, they make magical discoveries, with the first book centering on a hidden world, which is explored during their first year.
The official synopsis of the novel is thus:
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. He’s a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he’s still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to that, anything in his real life just seems gray and colorless.
Everything changes when Quentin finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the practice of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. But something is still missing. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he thought it would.
Then after graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real.
Unlike the Harry Potter books, which likely inspired this series of novels, The Magicians is not a book for each year of schooling, but there is a progression, and a full franchise is planned. The second book came out this summer.
No word if the series will follow the exact plotline of the first novel, but it is expected to depict the characters and locations.
The series pilot was developed and written by Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz. It will be produced by Michael London, Shawn Levy, and Michael Adelstein. Expect the first episode to hit either during the 2012 fall pilot season or the 2013 spring pilot season.
