Netflix is adapting Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer-winning ‘Lonesome Dove’
Mention Lonesome Dove to anyone who knows their Westerns and, well, you will have their attention faster than a hot knife through butter. This Larry McMurtry novel didn’t just win itself a Pulitzer, but its 1989 television adaptation became a landmark. Damn straight, Netflix was eyeing it; however, it is not exactly a Sunday stroll.
But who hasn’t heard of Netflix and its love for adaptations? And it looks like this time we’re getting a series on it with Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart writing and running the show together. And before anyone starts clutching their pearls, remember, these two have East of Eden, yet another classic, coming to Netflix this October, so yes, they know what they have signed up for.
McMurtry published Lonesome Dove in 1985, and a year later it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In case you are wondering, he isn’t just a one-book wonder. He wrote 29 novels and more than 30 screenplays, then shared an Oscar with Diana Ossana for Brokeback Mountain. This guy knows his onions!
As for the story, retired Texas Rangers Augustus “Gus” McCrae and Woodrow Call leave the town of Lonesome Dove and set off for Montana with a cattle herd. The West takes its pound of flesh, while Gus and Call’s friendship becomes the thing holding the story together.
And Netflix may have rather a lot riding on this, because Teton Ridge Entertainment acquired the screen rights to McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove books in 2025, with Streets of Laredo, Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon also in the stable. Nail the first series and, well, you can do the maths.
No cast yet. No premiere date either. Which leaves us with the awkward question of who on earth follows Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones? Mind you, those are enormous boots to fill! Will Netflix be able to make people fall for Lonesome Dove all over again?
Well… that is the million-dollar question.