Original Coverage & Source Attribution: movieweb.com
There’s nothing quite like a Western TV show. The Western genre has always been incredibly popular, and even more so in recent years, thanks to Taylor Sheridan’s plethora of Western movies and TV shows. One of Netflix’s most recent (and more notable) Western titles is East of Eden, which comes from the minds of Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart.
Kazan and Stuart have made a great impression with East of Eden, which flew to the top of Netflix’s streaming charts shortly after its release on Oct. 1, 2026. However, the pair aren’t stopping for long, as they’ve already announced that they’re working on an adaptation of Lonesome Dove for Netflix. While talking with Collider at the East of Eden premiere, Stuart had this to say:
“I have great respect for the original [CBS 1989] miniseries, and obviously the novel is like East of Eden. It’s a big, bold American novel that’s…also something you could use as a doorstop, it’s 900 pages. Because it is 900 pages, there’s a lot they didn’t get into that four-episode miniseries that was, you know, Robert Duvall’s masterpiece. So we set the bar pretty high, we’re excited about it…there will be cows.”
Released in 1985, Lonesome Dove is an epic Western novel by Larry McMurtry, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year. An iconic piece of literature in the Western genre, Lonesome Dove has been adapted once before: the 1989 CBS miniseries starring Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow F. Call, which was a huge success.
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CBS’ 1989 ‘Lonesome Dove’ Award Wins |
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|---|---|
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Category |
Winner(s) |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Achievement in Casting for a Miniseries or a Special |
Lynn Kressel |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Achievement in Makeup for a Miniseries or a Special |
Manlio Rocchetti, Carla Palmer, and Jean Ann Black – for Part 4 “The Return” |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Miniseries or a Special (Dramatic Underscore) |
Basil Poledouris – for Part 4 “The Return” |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special |
Van Broughton Ramsey – for Part 2 “On the Trail” |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Directing in a Miniseries or a Special |
Simon Wincer – for Part 1 “Leaving” and Part 4 “The Return” |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries or a Special |
Dave McMoyler (supervising sound editor) and several other sound editors – for Part 3 “The Plains” |
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1989 Emmy Awards – Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or a Special |
Donald F. Johnson, James L. Aicholtz, Michael Herbick, and Kevin O’Connell – for Part 4 “The Return” |
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1990 Golden Globes – Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV |
N/A |
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1990 Golden Globes – Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV |
Robert Duvall |
The 1989 CBS miniseries helped put the Western genre back on the map after a dip in interest in the 1980s, and even though the genre is at a peak right now, perhaps Lonesome Dove will solidify its prominence in the world of broadcast media even more. However, as Stuart pointed out, CBS was unable to cover all the content of the original book in the four-part miniseries, but it seems that this is something he and Kazan are already planning to tackle.
Netflix’s Lonesome Dove remake is facing some fierce competition, though. The CBS miniseries garnered seven Emmys and two Golden Globes for all manner of things, from the acting to the soundtrack and more; it’s considered by many as the greatest Western miniseries of all time. However, seeing how successful East of Eden has been so far, there’s a lot of hope for Kazan and Stuart’s Lonesome Dove.
- Release Date
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1989 – 1989-00-00
- Network
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CBS
- Directors
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Simon Wincer
- Writers
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William D. Wittliff
