Netflix Orders ‘Lonesome Dove’ Series From Zoe Kazan & Jeb Stuart Based On Larry McMurtry’s Novel
Netflix has ordered a new television series based on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove, with Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart set to write and co-showrun the Western drama alongside independent studio Teton Ridge Entertainment. The project reunites Kazan and Stuart, who are also co-showrunners on Netflix's forthcoming East of Eden limited series starring Florence Pugh, and marks a high-profile return to screen for one of the most celebrated stories of the American West.
Teton Ridge Entertainment acquired the rights to the Lonesome Dove franchise in February and brought Kazan and Stuart on to adapt it, with the project landing at Netflix as a straight-to-series order in early May after a competitive bidding process; the four-month gap before confirmation was reportedly due to complex rights issues that needed resolving. Envisioned as an ongoing series, the show follows former Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call on a perilous cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana. McMurtry's 1986 novel sold over four million copies and previously inspired a hit 1989 CBS miniseries starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, which drew around 26 million viewers and won a Peabody Award, seven Emmys and two Golden Globes.
- Netflix greenlights new Lonesome Dove series based on McMurtry's novel
- Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart write and co-showrun with Teton Ridge Entertainment
- Follows the acclaimed 1989 CBS miniseries starring Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones
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Netflix has commissioned a new series based on Lonesome Dove, the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel by Larry McMurtry. The book follows two ageing former Texas Rangers, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, as they drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Montana, and it previously became a hugely popular 1989 television miniseries starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones.
The new adaptation is being written and overseen by Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart, working with production company Teton Ridge Entertainment, which holds the rights to the story. Kazan and Stuart already collaborate on another Netflix project, an adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden featuring Florence Pugh, and Netflix has given Lonesome Dove a straight-to-series order, meaning it has been greenlit for production without a pilot episode first.
The project matters because it revives one of the best-known stories of the American West for a new generation of streaming audiences, and because it reunites a creative team already trusted by Netflix with another major literary adaptation.