Right now at the TV critics’ press tour, Joy Behar is on stage, announcing her new HLN talk show (because she has gone too long without a forum for her opinions). But I’d rather tell you about the fact that FX has picked up Lawman, an Elmore Leonard adaptation with Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood’s Sheriff Bullock) as a U.S. marshal, for debut next spring. Excerpts from the announcement after the jump:
LOS ANGELES, July 28, 2009 – FX has placed a 13-episode order for its next original drama series, Lawman, which was developed by Graham Yost (Boomtown, Speed) and stars Timothy Olyphant (Damages, Deadwood), announced John Landgraf, President and General Manager, FX Networks. Lawman will premiere on FX in spring of 2010.
Produced by Sony Pictures Television and FX Productions, Lawman is based on the popular Elmore Leonard character “Raylan Givens” featured in his short story Fire in the Hole. Yost, who created and produced the critically acclaimed NBC drama Boomtown, wrote the pilot and will serve as Executive Producer/Writer on the series. Leonard (Cuba Libre, Rum Punch, Get Shorty) will serve as an Executive Producer on the series along with Sarah Timberman (Kidnapped), Carl Beverly (Kidnapped) and Michael Dinner (Karen Sisco), who directed the pilot episode. The pilot was shot in Pittsburgh and Miami, and series production will take place in Southern California beginning this fall.
[snip]
Olyphant stars in the lead role of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Givens is a modern day 19th century-style lawman, enforcing his brand of justice in a way that puts a target on his back with criminals and places him at odds with his bosses in the Marshal service. That conflict results in a reassignment for Givens to the U.S. District covering the town where he grew up. He is an anachronism – a tough, soft spoken gentleman who finds his quarry fascinating, but never gives an inch. Dig under his placid skin and you’ll find an angry man who grew up hard in rural Kentucky, with an outlaw father, who knows a lot more about who he doesn’t want to be than who he really is.
Sheriff Bullock: 2010? I’ll be interested to hear more about this show.