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.