Thread by @WEarlBrown

The Chronology Of The Return To The Muddy Thoroughfare

A cast mate on DEADWOOD once said, “I was bummed last season when I didn’t have a lot to do, I realized I was batting 9th in the order. I’ve never batted 9th in the order at anything I’ve ever done...

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”...Then I realized, I’m batting 9th in the order on the 1927 Yankees.”

That’s what it was like working on that show. Its abrupt cancellation was devastating for all of us. The show did not end - it stopped. There is a big difference between those two.

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For years, I’ve been asked “what happened” “is it coming back”? The story of the cancellation has been well covered and explored in numerous publications, the best being the books DIFFICULT MEN by B Martin and THE REVOLUTION WAS TELEVISED by A Sepinwall.

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There isn’t a lot I can add to that discussion. I’m now getting asked about the DEADWOOD film that was announced yesterday. This is how it unfolded from my perspective (it is drawn from memory, so dates should be considered approximate):

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*June, 2006. I got “The Call” from David Milch. Cancelled. I was blindsided by it. (12 hours later, a feature film I’d written and was in pre-production lost its funding - but that’s another story)

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*November 2006 Contracts expired. All the horses were out of the barn, but I grew up on my grandad’s farm, I can round up a herd. I kept a legal pad on my desk which kept track of the cast and what they were doing.

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My favorite inscriptions: “Tim - hillbilly cop show in KY” “Anna - a show about meth in ABQ”

*September 2007. I gave up. Stopped beating a dead horse. Tore up that sheet of paper. It was over.

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*December 2011. At his bequest, I had lunch with Milch. He was revisiting the idea of HBO’s offer to “produce two films and wrap up the story”. The idea was to do The Flood and The Fire (both historical occurrences) - it was Old Testament judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah.

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That had been the driving idea behind the never-made seasons 4 & 5. Milch was riding high on the advance buzz on his new series, LUCK. LUCK did not do well for a variety of reasons. Its failure spelled the death knell for any new DEADWOODs. Hopes crushed yet again.

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*February 2016. I’d emailed David’s wife, inquiring about another subject. While in ABQ working on the PREACHER pilot, I got a response in which she wrote, “Also, HBO called. There a good chance we mar return to the Thoroughfare at some point.” Hope revived.

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*June 2016. Another Milch lunch. I was trepidatious, fearing that with the intervening decade’s aging, The Flood and The Fire would become a show about youth-makeup and hair-dye. No. Milch was excited to share his new ideas and pages.

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This DEADWOOD film would pick up ten years later and tell a post-flood/fire story. He read page after page of scenes aloud to me at our table.

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*April 2017. Got an email while boarding a flight. “Things look good, but nothing is a given. I want you to have this just it case...” Attached was a copy of the script. I read it in the plane and cried. Out loud. Tears rolling down my cheeks.

*May 2018. Powers Booths died.

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*April 2018. My agent got a call to hold my dates for Oct and Nov

*May 2018. I took some Swedish friends to visit Melody Ranch. WESTWORLD has just wrapped, so we explored. I found out from the owners that HBO had leased the lot for DW, starting July 1

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*July 2018 Flurries of phone calls/texts/emails/tweets between cast and crew: “What’ve you heard I heard...”

*July 25, 2018. HBO formally green lights production.

To be continued...

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Correction : Powers passing was May 2017. That’s a typo.