New Westerns

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  • Will The Success Of ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ Spur A Wave Of Western-Themed Series?


    Just two weeks ago, TV networks’ infatuation with period Westerns seemed to have waned. Of the slew of such projects put in development by the broadcast networks last season, only one, NBC’s The Frontier, had been picked up to pilot, and it didn’t make the cut to series. At the same time, TNT passed on its own period Western pilot, Tin Star.


    Two weeks later, History’s Hatfields & McCoys burst into the scene, drawing huge crowds. Yes, its viewership skewed older, which is understandable given the historic subject matter, but there were plenty of 18-49-year-olds among the 13-14 million who tuned in for each episode to get the broadcast networks’ attention. And the timing is perfect as pitch season is just around the corner.


    NBC may be the first to jump in with the Kerry Ehrin Western originally developed this past season. The network has been the most aggressive among the broadcast networks in the arena, ordering period Western drama pilots for two consecutive years: The Crossing in 2011 and The Frontier this year. The network developed a total of three Western scripts and its executives were happy with all of them, eventually narrowing the field to The Frontier and the Kerry Ehrin project and ultimately going with The Frontier.


    I hear NBC is now revisiting the Kerry Ehrin drama, produced by Universal TV and Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner’s Hazy Mills. Coincidentally, the project’s producers and NBC brass met on Tuesday morning, when the big ratings for the first night of Hatfields & McCoys came out. Set in the 1880s, the Kerry Ehrin project centers on Jacob Morris, a young, eccentric East Coast doctor of mental disorders who moves to a primitive Western town at the foot of the Colorado Rockies.


    I hear NBC executives are open to ordering the script to pilot if a name actor and/or director are attached. Other high-profile Westerns that were developed at the broadcast networks last season included The Rifleman reboot at CBS with Laeta Kalogridis, Chris Columbus and Carol Mendelsohn; a Wyatt Earp Western at Fox penned by John Hlavin; and Ron Moore’s Hangtown, set in the early 1900s, and David Zabel’s Gunslinger, both at ABC.


    With TV business being notoriously reactive, look for some of those to be revisited too and new Western concepts to start coming fast and furious once the floodgates at the broadcast networks open.


    The only true Western series on the air right now is AMC’s Hell On Wheels on Sunday. CBS has period drama Vegas coming out in the fall but despite its protagonist, played by Dennis Quaid, being a cowboy-type sheriff, the drama deals with the mob’s 1960s takeover of Las Vegas. Ditto for FX’s Justified, despite the lead’s penchant for wearing cowboy hats.


    Another highly-rated Western miniseries, AMC’s Broken Trail, didn’t have a major impact on series development. But the success of Hatfields & McCoys comes as the Western genre has already built a strong momentum, making a new period Western series order within the next year a strong possibility.


    http://www.deadline.com/2012/0…hemed-series/#more-280527

  • I regret I wasn't clearer, Batjac. My intent was to underscore that someone was unfamiliar with the Hatfield and McCoy feud. Of course, I'm old enough to have met the original participants.
    Thanks for the chance to clear that up.





    We deal in lead, friend.




  • Surely not:omg:

    I agree that it seems impossible that an adult American hasn't heard of the H&M feud. I have heard of it all my life.

  • I just watched the first episode of Hell on Wheels earlier and it was decent enough, I think it'll grow on me as pilots can often be more about setting the scene and establishing the story rather than anything too gripping, i'll give the second episode a watch anyway and see how it goes



    Great series. I seen the whole season and thought this will be a good series. Can't wait until the next season. AMC is pretty good with the series they put on. But I actually saw the first season when it premiered back last fall.

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • I think this is a modern day Western.


    Magnolia Acquires Border Drama ‘Frontera’ At Baja Int’l Film Fest


    Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. and Canada rights to Frontera, starring Ed Harris, Eva Longoria, and Michael Peña. The drama directed by Michael Berry from his script with Luis Moulinet III follows hard-working father and devoted husband Miguel (Peña), who crosses the border illegally and is wrongfully accused of murdering the wife of a former sheriff (Harris). Miguel’s pregnant wife (Longoria) lands in the hands of corrupt coyotes as she tries to help her husband, while the ex-lawman investigates his wife’s death and unearths disturbing evidence that could destroy one family’s future. Magnolia is plotting a 2014 theatrical release. Ocean Blue Entertainment produced the pic, with Eric Austin Williams exec producing. The deal went down in Los Cabos, Mexico during the second annual Baja International Film Festival, marking the neophyte but swanky fest’s first major U.S. film sale. Magnolia’s John Von Thaden inked the deal with CAA repping the filmmakers. Myriad Pictures is handling international sales.


    http://www.deadline.com/2013/1…-frontera-baja-film-fest/

  • History Greenlights Texas Rangers Mini From ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ Producer; Bill Paxton & Brendan Fraser Lead Star Cast


    History has given the green light to its next big-scope miniseries, the eight-hour Texas Rising (working title), for a 2015 premiere. The project, which had been in the works at the cable network for a year and a half, comes from Leslie Greif, the producer of History’s first miniseries, mega hit Hatfields & McCoys. It will feature a big-name cast led by Hatfield & McCoys star Bill Paxton, who earned an Emmy nomination for his role as Randall McCoy. The project will detail the Texas Revolution against Mexico and the rise of the legendary Texas Rangers.


    Paxton will play Sam Houston, the father of Texas. He is joined by Brendan Fraser as Billy Anderson, a Texas Ranger with Comanche Indian ties; Ray Liotta as Lorca, an Alamo survivor seeking brutal revenge; history_channel_logoJeffrey Dean Morgan as “Deaf” Smith, a deaf and grizzled veteran Texas Ranger with an advanced case of consumption; Thomas Jane as James Wykoff, a homesteader who finds himself living in the middle of hostile Indian territory; Olivier Martinez as President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the tyrant dictator of Mexico; Chad Michael Murray as Mirabeau Lamar, a spirited Texas soldier who helps win the battle of San Jacinto; Michael Rapaport as Sgt. Ephraim Knowles, a would-be deserter and coward turned hero; and Max Thieriot as Jack Hays, a volunteer freedom fighter who becomes the youngest Texas Ranger.


    Roland Joffé is is directing the mini, from A+E Studios and ITV Studios America, produced by Thinkfactory Media with Greif serving as executive producer. Greif also co-wrote the script for all four two-hour installments with Hatfields & McCoys producer Darrell Fetty; Hatfields co-writer Ted Mann co-wrote Night 1 with them. “From Hatfields & McCoys to The Bible to Vikings, History has made a major commitment to high-quality scripted historical dramas,” said the network’s EVP Dirk Hoogstra, “The Texas Revolution is one of the most gut-wrenching and inspirational events in our history. Doing the story justice will be a massive undertaking and we’re excited to begin production with one of the best teams in the business.”


    In 1836, if west of the Mississippi was considered the Wild West then Texas was hell on earth. Crushed from the outside by Mexican armadas and attacked from within by ferocious Comanche tribes, no one was safe. But this was a time of bravery, a time to die for what you believed in and a time to stand tall against the cruel rule of the Mexican General Santa Anna. From General Sam Houston to rag tag Rangers to the legendary “Yellow Rose of Texas” — this is a story of the human spirit rising in the face of insurmountable odds and claiming a piece of history for all eternity. “It’s exciting to be back working with History and Bill Paxton, a team that made television history with Hatfields & McCoys,” said Greif. “The battle for Texas independence was epic and really the battle for the future of America.”


    http://www.deadline.com/2014/0…ton-ray-liotta-lead-cast/

  • History’s ‘Texas Rising’ Gets ‘Hatfield & McCoys’ Memorial Day Premiere Date


    With a similar 19th Century setting, the same production company, Thinkfactory Media, and the same star, Bill Paxton, History’s Texas Rising miniseries was clearly groomed as a follow-up to the network’s hugely successful Hatfields & McCoys miniseries. Now the network continues to use the Hatfields & McCoys template in its release plans for Texas Rising, which will premiere on Memorial Day 2015, exactly three years after Hatfields & McCoys debuted on the same May holiday. There is one difference: Hatfields & McCoys was six-hour and aired over three consecutive nights. Texas Rising is eight-hour, but asking viewers to tune in for four consecutive nights may be too big of a commitment. Probably that’s why History only announced the premiere date today, with the air pattern for the other three parts TBD.


    In Texas Rising, about the Texas Revolution and the rise of the legendary Texas Rangers, Paxton doesn’t have his Hatfields & McCoys co-star Kevin Costner next to him but the mini assembled a formidable cast that includes Brendan Fraser, Ray Liotta, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Olivier Martinez, Thomas Jane, Rhys Coiro, Robert Knepper, Rob Morrow and Kris Kristofferson.


    http://deadline.com/2014/08/te…iere-date-history-819876/

  • The Salvation


    The mighty Mads Mikkelsen unleashes a maelstrom of bloodshed in the Wild West in this white-knuckle tale of revenge. When he lays waste to the scoundrels who killed his wife and son, a Danish ex-soldier (Mikkelsen) incurs the wrath of a sadistic gang leader (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) hell-bent on hunting him down. Exploding with eye-popping action, dazzlingly dramatic frontier landscapes, and a smoldering performance by Eva Green, The Salvation is a rip-roaring, blood-spattered saga of sin and redemption.


    Trailer,
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwBS3a9HOWI

  • The Revenant


    The frontiersman, Hugh Glass, who in the 1820s set out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.


    Leonardo DiCaprio directed by Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu due out in 2016.


    I read the book. It's quite good and an easy read.


    From Publishers Weekly,


    Based on a true incident of heroism in the history of the American West, this debut by a Washington, D.C., international trade attorney and former bureaucrat in the Clinton administration is an almost painfully gripping drama. A Philadelphia-born adventurer, frontiersman Hugh Glass goes to sea at age 16 and enjoys a charmed life, including several years under the flag of the pirate Jean Lafitte and almost a year as a prisoner of the Loup Pawnee Indians on the plains between the Platte and the Arkansas rivers. In 1822, at age 36, Glass escapes, finds his way to St. Louis and enters the employ of Capt. Andrew Henry, trapping along tributaries of the Missouri River. After surviving months of hardship and Indian attack, he falls victim to a grizzly bear. His throat nearly ripped out, scalp hanging loose and deep slashing wounds to his back, shoulder and thigh, Glass appears to be mortally wounded. Initially, Captain Henry refuses to abandon him and has him carried along the Grand River. Unfortunately, the terrain soon makes transporting Glass impossible. Even though his death seems certain, Henry details two men, a fugitive mercenary, John Fitzgerald, and young Jim Bridger (who lived to become a frontier hero) to stand watch and bury him. After several days, Fitzgerald sights hostile Indians. Taking Glass's rifle and tossing Bridger his knife, Fitzgerald flees with Bridger, leaving Glass. Enraged at being left alone and defenseless, Glass survives against all odds and embarks on a 3,000-mile-long vengeful pursuit of his ignominious betrayers. Told in simple expository language, this is a spellbinding tale of heroism and obsessive retribution.

  • In A Valley of Violence


    A revenge Western film set in the 1890s, where a man arrives in a small town seeking vengeance for his murdered friend.


    John Travolta (yikes) Ethan Hawkes


    Release date December 4, 2015