Netflix has ordered a new television adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove” straight to series, tapping showrunners Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart to reunite just weeks before their previous collaboration for the streamer, “East of Eden,” debuts on Oct. 1. The pair won the project in a competitive bidding situation, landing rights that Teton Ridge Entertainment had secured earlier this year before commissioning Kazan and Stuart to develop the western.
The series will draw from the first novel in McMurtry’s saga, tracking former Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call as they leave settled lives behind for one final cattle drive, pushing a herd from the Rio Grande into the unclaimed reaches of Montana. Netflix’s official description frames the journey around unrequited longing, frontier justice and a friendship tested by the pursuit of a life that may already have passed the two men by.
Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of scripted series for the U.S. and Canada, said the streamer’s confidence in the project rests on what Kazan and Stuart demonstrated while adapting John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” pointing to their handling of character depth and sense of place. Teton Ridge president Jillian Share called the McMurtry novel a story that surfaces once in a generation and said the goal is to reimagine it for new audiences while keeping its emotional core intact.
Diana Ossana, McMurtry’s longtime writing partner and an executive producer on the new series, framed the greenlight as a continuation of a decades-long creative relationship. She said the world of “Lonesome Dove” has stayed with her since she and McMurtry first developed it, and that carrying its themes of loss and human connection into a new adaptation carries deep personal weight. Additional executive producers include Thomas Tull and Jen Gorton of Teton Ridge, Jon Jashni and McMurtry’s son, Curtis McMurtry.
The novel previously became a four-part CBS miniseries in 1989, starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane and Anjelica Huston, a production that remains one of the most honored westerns ever made for television. No casting has been announced for the Netflix version.
