Gender-swapped Zorro series slashing its way to The CW from Robert & Rebecca Rodiguez

Zorro, the swashbuckling vigilante who has been a pop culture mainstay since 1919, is getting The CW treatment and a female lead, according to Deadline. The project was originally whipped up at NBC with writing partners/siblings Robert and Rebecca Rodriguez attached, and now includes co-writer Sean Tretta (Mayans, M.C.). 

The project is being developed by CBS Studios and Rebecca Rodriguez, whose directing credits include episodes of Doom Patrol and Snowpiercer, who will also direct the series.

This isn’t the first time Robert Rodriguez — who is also a director on The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian — has been involved in a Zorro project. Back in 1998, he was originally attached to The Mask of Zorro feature film and cast Antonio Banderas in the lead role before leaving the production, before being replaced by Martin Campbell.

The story about a masked vigilante coming to the aid of the poor and the vulnerable by going after the evil and the corrupt has had many other iterations since the original 1919 works by pulp writer Johnston McCulley. Zorro has graced small and large screens since then, including the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks, the 1957 television series Zorro starring Guy Williams, as well as The Mask of Zorro and 2005’s The Legend of Zorro, which both starred Banderas. 

The CW take on the Zorro tale will focus on a young Latinx woman who joins a secret society in her efforts to seek vengeance against those who murdered her father. It is one of at least two Zorro dramas in the works. The other project is a Disney-led endeavor that is a reimagining of the 1957 series, with Wilmer Valderrama cast as the masked crusader.

No news yet on who will play the female lead in The CW series, much less when we’ll see this version of Zorro on our televisions.