The story of Hell or High Water is about to head into a whole new medium. On Monday, it was confirmed (via Variety) that a television adaptation of the 2016 film is currently in the works for Fox. The project has reportedly received a script and additional material to series order, with Dopesick and Stranger Things‘ Jessica Mecklenburg writing and executive producing the project. In the hypothetical Hell or High Water series, when a ruthless oil tycoon attempts to plunder a West Texas ranching community, two local brothers dodge a zealous Texas Ranger and fight to keep what’s theirs, one bank robbery at a time, come hell or high water.
The Hell or High Water series will be executive produced by original film producers Sidney Kimmel, John Penotti, Charlie Corwin, and Marcy Ross, alongside Gigi Pritzker and Rachel Shane of Madison Wells and Julie Yorn, Carla Hacken, and the film’s original director, David Mackenzie.
The original film was directed by Mackenzie and written by Yellowstone‘s Taylor Sheridan, with a cast that included Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, and Gil Birmingham.
“At the time I came up with the idea, Texas was going through its worst drought in a century,” Sheridan explained in a 2016 interview with Collider. “It was a back breaker for many of these cattle ranches that were facing their own calamities completely independent of the drought. I was back visiting a friend and we drove through the town of Archer City. It was just empty house after empty house after empty house. I went back to this area of Texas — where my family’s from… All the stores that had once been there were gone or had been boarded up. It looked like it had been evacuated. It was sad. So I was very intrigued by that and curious. I mean – I knew why but I was curious to explore it. Likewise I called my cousin Parnell McNamara who’s been a Marshall in Central Texas for thirty-four-years, but was forced to retire at sixty-five. He dedicated his life to this profession and all the sacrifices that come with that and then one day, arbitrarily, he’s told he can’t do it anymore. So that notion of a life without purpose and seeking purpose. Those two things combined for me and that’s where the story came from.”
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