Magic City is an American drama television series created by Mitch Glazer for the Starz network. The pilot episode previewed on Starz March 30, 2012, and premiered April 6, 2012. Starz renewed the series for an eight-episode second season on March 20, 2012, and canceled it August 5, 2013, after two seasons. Set in 1959 Miami, Florida, shortly after the Cuban Revolution, Magic City tells the story of Ike Evans, the owner of Miami's most glamorous hotel, the Miramar Playa. Evans is forced to make an ill-fated deal with Miami Jewish Mob boss Ben Diamond to ensure the success of his glitzy establishment.
Olga Kurylenko as Vera Evans, Ike's second wife, stepmother to Stevie, Danny, and Lauren Evans, convert to the Evans' Judaism, and former Havana nightclub dancer under the name "Vera Cruz"
Steven Strait as Steven "Stevie" Evans, Ike Evans' "bad boy" older son and the manager of the Miramar's Atlantis Lounge
Leland Orser as Mike Strauss, a labor union official
Michael Rispoli as Belvin "Bel" Jaffe, a gangster and bookie in the Jewish Mob who works for Ben Diamond out of the back room of the Sea Breeze Lingerie shop in the Miramar's shopping arcade
Magic City was created by Miami native Mitch Glazer, who wrote the series around his experiences growing up there: he once worked as a cabana boy in a Miami Beach hotel, his father was an electrical engineer at the city's grand hotels in the late 1950s, and he grew up listening to stories of the exploits of hotel staff and clientele. Many of the incidents Glazer relates in the series "are based on stories that happened, that I saw, or older brothers and sisters or my parents told me." As a journalist, he did extensive research on what was happening in the lobbies of hotels in late 1950s and early 1960s: "There’s wiretaps—tapes they’ve made public now—where the CIA gives Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli $300,000 and poison powder to kill Castro in the Boom Boom Room in the Fontainebleau Hotel," he said. Included in the series, Glazer states, will be Central Intelligence Agency activities in Cuba and issues connected to the Civil Rights Movement. He first envisioned Magic City as a feature film, but said he quickly realized he had more stories to tell than would fit in a film. Glazer had written different versions of Magic City for years. He originally wrote and sold it to CBS, who eventually let it go to the Starz network. "CBS was really nice to me and generous in letting it go to Starz. It’s not a procedural, it’s not a franchise. It needs to be allowed to do the sexuality and violence and the things that were part of Miami Beach in the 1959", he said. In 2007, Chris Albrecht was fired from HBO and joined Glazer and some of his friends for a research expedition to Havana. "It was an insane group," Glazer remembered. "Jimmy Caan and Robert Duvall and Benicio Del Toro." They were visiting a Havana hotel designed by the architect Morris Lapidus when Glazer remarked to Albrecht, "You know, I grew up in this kind of hotel. My father worked with Morris Lapidus on the Fontainebleau Hotel and Eden Roc Hotel as an electrical engineer." In 2009, after Albrecht became president and C.E.O. of Starz, Glazer recalled, "I sent him a script I had written years before, and he called me literally hours later and said, 'This is amazing, let's do this.'"
Reception
Critical reception
The first season received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregatorMetacritic calculated a score of 56/100 based on 27 reviews. Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald said of the series: "The sordid ugliness that festers inside Magic City's voluptuously beautiful wrappings makes irresistible television." The Contra Costa Times’ Chuck Barney praised the cast and visual style. He said in his review: "Through the early episodes, nothing really happens that you couldn't see coming. Still, the setting is so seductive, the period details so vivid and the acting so stellar, that it's as intoxicating as a potent mojito." NJ.com criticized the gratuitous nudity in many dressing room scenes.
Awards and accolades
Movie spin-off
A feature film is in the works and is set to be directed by Mitch Glazer. Stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Olga Kurylenko, Danny Huston, and Kelly Lynch are set to reprise their roles. Bruce Willis and Bill Murray will also have starring roles.
Home media
The entire Magic City series was released by Starz and Anchor Bay in Blu-ray and DVD formats on May 13, 2014.
