HBO is not only known for outstanding original series content in the drama and comedy departments, but also incredible miniseries. Long before the more fashionable term “limited series” came around, HBO was knocking it out of the park with stuff like Band of Brothers and John Adams, so when word came that the pay cable channel was developing a six-hour Lewis and Clark miniseries starring Casey Affleck and Matthias Schoenaerts, executive produced by Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, and Edward Norton, there was reason to be excited.
However, as production got underway last year, harsh weather conditions and creative differences with director John Curran (The Painted Veil) caused the network to halt filming and regroup. Curran and his director of photography Rob Hardy departed the miniseries, but we haven’t heard an update on the project since, so when Steve spoke with Casey Affleck at the press day for The Finest Hours, he asked him about the status of Lewis and Clark:
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“The update is they are rewriting it, trying to make the scripts and the production a little bit more manageable. It was too unwieldy, they were trying to do so much, cover so many years, and it’s such a gigantic journey that it was almost impossible. It was a gigantic production that got lost control of and the seasons got ahead of them, and then they were finished. So now they’re sort of regrouping and aiming to just kind of start over again knowing what they know. It’ll be hard.”
It sounds like the production was even more daunting than we knew, but given the troubles that faced other projects like The Revenant and The Hateful Eight recently, this isn’t exactly a unique situation. The story of Lewis and Clark is a fascinating one, so here’s hoping the project is all the better for this readjustment.
