NBC orders The Slap and a Wizard of Oz series

NBC has ordered a US remake of Australian drama series The Slap.

US network has greenlit an eight-episode series. It will be based on the 2011 Australian drama (pictured), which was in turn an adaptation of the Christos Tsiolkas novel of the same name.

It tells the story of the effects a seemingly trivial domestic incident has on the families and friends involved.

The US version will be penned by Jon Robin Baitz (The West Wing) and Universal Television will be on production duty.

The original version is produced by Matchbox and aired on Australian pubcaster the ABC’s flagship ABC1 channel.

It was sold internationally by DCD Rights, which shopped it to DirecTV in the US, BBC Four in the UK, Globosat in Brazil, SVT in Sweden and TVO in Canada among others.

Separately, NBC has ordered Wizard of Oz-inspired scripted series Emerald City. Based on the Frank L. Baum book series, the show will follow 20-year-old Dorothy Gale as she is unwittingly thrust into the centre of an epic and bloody battle for the control of Oz.

As with The Slap, Universal Television will produce.