A Deadwood Movie May Actually See The Light of Day

HBO’s celebrated Western is beginning a long trek to the silver screen.

Saddle up, Deadwood fans: Nearly a decade after HBO’s gritty Western drama drew to a close in Deadwood, South Dakota, a spokesman for the channel confirmed that they’re engaged in “very preliminary discussions” about raising the series from the dead.

Varietyreports that actor Garret Dillahunt, who played the volatile geologist Francis Wilcott, tweeted that he was “hearing credible rumors” about the film.

The beloved series only ran for three seasons between 2004 and 2006, despite a loyal audience and and taking home eight Emmy awards, including best drama, best writing and best acting.

Rumors of a film should excite even casual viewers of Deadwood. Before Mad Men and Breaking Bad ushered in a new era of stylized prestige television, writer David Milch’s brutal portrayal of the American frontier offered an enthralling and expletive-laden reimagining of tired tropes of Western anti-heroes, from the embattled sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) to  the cunning and amoral saloon proprietor Al Swearengen (Ian McShane). 

Deadwood gave viewers “a portrait of the West as moral mudhole, inhabited by pathologically ill-tempered characters,” as Grantland’s Alex Pappademas puts it, a series that “eschewed both the easy answers of the traditional oater and the pulp existentialism of the revisionist Western.”|


If that doesn’t convince you, here’s a single episode of the series recut with nothing but swearing. Enjoy!

Photos by HBO

Share: 
Tags: