Michael Lombard, president of HBO Programming, announced on Friday that the network has greenlit a 6-hour miniseries about American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone) will play Lewis and Clark respectively. Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman (Silence of the Lambs), Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner (12 Years a Slave), Tim Kelly (The Last Lions) and Adam Leipzig (The Way Back) are the executive producers. John Curran (The Painted Veil) will direct and Michelle Ashford (Masters of Sex) will write the screenplay
According to Lombardo in the press release, the mini will depict “American idealism and the breathtaking natural beauty of the continent, as well as the complexities and tragedies of what came to be known as America’s ‘manifest destiny’.”
Lewis and Clark is based on the 1995 book Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose (Band of Brothers, D-Day) and, according to HBO “tells the story of America’s first contact with the land and native tribes of the country west of the Mississippi River. The miniseries follows the epic journey of the Corps of Discovery and its captains, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who traverse uncharted territory on a mission to deliver President Jefferson’s message of sovereignty as they search for his fabled all-water route to the Pacific.”
Production is scheduled to begin this summer.
via: Press Release