East of Eden hasn’t even premiered yet (it drops on Netflix on October 1), and Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart have already been handed their next great American novel.
When a streamer trusts a creative team enough to greenlight their next sprawling literary epic before audiences have seen the first one, you know they’ve seen something extraordinary in the work. I think we are in very good hands.
Netflix has given a straight-to-series order to a new adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove, with East of Eden co-showrunners Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart returning to lead the project.
The series comes from Teton Ridge Entertainment, which acquired the rights to the full Lonesome Dove literary franchise earlier this year and took the package to Netflix in late April, where, in a very competitive situation, it landed with a straight-to-series commitment by early May.
Kazan and Stuart announced the news with a statement that immediately told you everything about the spirit they’re bringing to it:
“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.”
Who Was Larry McMurtry?
Larry Jeff McMurtry was born in 1936 in Wichita Falls, Texas, to a family of ranchers whose ancestors had arrived in Texas in 1877. He grew up on the land that would become the subject of so much of his fiction—the fading frontier, the myth of the West, the gap between how the American story was told and how it actually felt to live it.
McMurtry died in March 2021 at the age of 84, but his literary legacy is as alive as it has ever been. Films adapted from his work earned 34 Oscar nominations with 13 wins. He and longtime creative partner Diana Ossana, who is executive producing the Netflix series, co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Brokeback Mountain in 2005.
His Lonesome Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1986 and is considered his magnum opus.
McMurtry himself spoke about the novel’s ambition with characteristic honesty in a 2014 interview:
“Lonesome Dove was an effort to kind of demythologize the myth of the Old West. But they’re going to twist it into something romantic no matter what you do.”
What Is Lonesome Dove About?
Lonesome Dove is not merely a Western. It is one of the great American novels—an 843-page epic that McMurtry wrote in just six months, originally conceived as a screenplay in the 1970s before becoming the book that permanently changed how the Western genre was understood.
The official series description captures the sweep of what Kazan and Stuart are adapting:
Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call renew their spirit of adventure as they face an uncertain future, embarking on one final, perilous cattle drive from the Rio Grande to the untamed wilderness of Montana in pursuit of a dream that they have perhaps already outlived. These two former Texas Rangers lead an unforgettable cast of characters across the American West in this sweeping odyssey defined by unrequited longing, unbreakable friendship, brutal frontier justice, and an unwavering pursuit of a meaningful life.
The two central characters—the garrulous, life-loving Gus McCrae and the stoic, duty-driven Woodrow Call—were loosely inspired by real-life cattle drivers Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, and McMurtry has said he drew on Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote when building their dynamic.
They are, in the most classical sense, a perfect pair: complementary opposites whose friendship defines both of them, who cannot be fully understood without each other.
The novel was originally adapted into a CBS miniseries in 1989 starring Robert Duvall as Gus and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow Call. It was one of the most acclaimed television productions in American history, earning 18 Emmy Award nominations and seven wins.
Robert Duvall has repeatedly cited the role of Gus McCrae as among the greatest of his career, comparing it to performing Hamlet. The three novels that followed in McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove series were each adapted as miniseries.
This Netflix version is a complete reimagining, not a continuation of that legacy.
The Creative Team Netflix Is Betting Everything On
The speed of this deal is a statement of faith that deserves to be taken seriously.
Netflix Head of Scripted Series Jinny Howe made that faith explicit in her statement:
“Lonesome Dove is one of the great American stories, and there was no question we wanted to follow Zoe and Jeb wherever they went next. After East of Eden, we know exactly what they’re capable of—the depth of character, the sweep of place, the emotional precision. This material deserves that level of care. In their hands, it’s going to be something extraordinary.”
Kazan and Stuart serve as co-showrunners, writers, and executive producers. They are joined by Thomas Tull, Jillian Share, and Jen Gorton of Teton Ridge Entertainment; Jon Jashni; Diana Ossana, McMurtry’s longtime creative partner and the woman who co-wrote Brokeback Mountain with him; and Curtis McMurtry of the McMurtry Estate. The McMurtry family’s direct creative involvement in protecting this legacy is enormously significant.
No cast has been announced, and no premiere date has been set. Given that Kazan and Stuart are presumably still in post-production on East of Eden and the writing process for Lonesome Dove would need to begin fresh, a 2028 premiere feels realistic at the earliest.
The Trail Has Always Been Open
Something worth knowing about Lonesome Dove: Robert Duvall, who played Gus McCrae in the 1989 miniseries, has said the role was like performing Hamlet. He did not say that lightly, and anyone who has read the novel understands exactly what he meant.
The Netflix series will eventually cast its own Gus and its own Call. When it does, the internet will have enormous, passionate, probably unresolvable opinions about whether they were right. The only way to have an informed opinion in that conversation—the only way to know in your bones whether the casting is correct—is to have already met these two men on the page.
At 843 pages, Lonesome Dove is not a small commitment. It is, however, one of the most rewarding ones American literature has to offer.
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