Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is headed to the small screen once again, Deadline reports.
Netflix is developing a series adaptation of McMurtry’s sprawling 1985 novel, which follows a group of retired Texas Rangers, including Augustus “Gus” McCrae and Woodrow F. Call, as they embark on an epic cattle drive to Montana. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “This is a masterly novel. It will appeal to all lovers of fiction of the first order.”
The novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, was memorably adapted into a 1989 miniseries written by William D. Wittliff and starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, and Diane Lane. The series won seven Emmy Awards.
The new series will be written by Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart, who will serve as showrunners, too. The pair are also showrunners on the upcoming Netflix adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, scheduled to premiere on the streaming service on Oct. 1.
Kazan and Stuart said in a statement, “After our singular experience on East of Eden, we are thrilled to be teaming with Netflix again, along with Teton Ridge Entertainment, to bring Larry McMurtry’s western classic to life. We come to this material with love and respect, and can’t wait to hit the trail with Gus and Call and the rest of these beloved characters. Yee-haw.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
