Lonesome Dove - Adaptations

Adaptations

A television miniseries adaptation, produced by Motown Productions, was broadcast on CBS in 1989. It starred Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae, Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow F. Call, Rick Schroder as Newt, Diane Lane as Lorena Wood, Danny Glover as Joshua Deets, Robert Urich as Jake Spoon, Anjelica Huston as Clara Allen, Frederic Forrest as Blue Duck, Chris Cooper as July Johnson, and Barry Corbin as Roscoe Brown. Four other actors (Charles Bronson, Robert Duvall, James Garner, and Jon Voight) were offered the role of Woodrow Call but declined for various reasons before the role fell to Tommy Lee Jones. The majority of the miniseries was filmed at the Moody Ranch located seven miles south of Del Rio, Texas. Other locations used for filming, were ranches, in Texas and New Mexico. Real ranch horses were used for authenticity during the filming of the movie. The majority of the ION Television has shown a digitally remastered version of the miniseries starting the weekend of June 30, 2007 during the "RHI Movie Weekend" (RHI Entertainment are the current owners of the Lonesome Dove miniseries). The four episodes are entitled Leaving, On the Trail, The Plains, and Return.

There was also a syndicated spin-off TV series Lonesome Dove: The Series centering on Newt (Scott Bairstow) taking up residence in the fictional town of Curtis Wells, Montana, having adopted his father's family name of Call. Starting out as a fairly romanticized interpretation of the West, it was heavily revamped for its second season, gaining a much grittier feel and the new title Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. Filming took place in Calgary, Alberta, and a total of 43 episodes were produced, airing between 1994 and 1996.