Lonesome Dove and Larry McMurtry

There's good news for all of us Lonesome Dove fans. It looks like we'll be seeing a lot of Larry McMurtry stuff in the months to come.

I've just learned that Comanche Moon, a movie that takes place after the 1996 movie Dead Mans Walk , starring David Arquette and Tommy Lee Miller, and before the original Lonesome Dove starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, is in production and due to be released in November of this year as a TV mini series.

Comanche Moon stars Karl Urban as Woodrow F. Call and Steve Zahn as Gus McCrae. Val Kilmer, Wes Studi and Elizabeth Banks are among some of the others who also star in the movie. I'm sure it will be a hit.

Boone's Lick, another Larry McMurtry book, is also in pre-production. Boone's Lick stars Tom Hanks and Julianne Moore and is due to be released sometime in 2008. I'm must confess, I've never read this one and don't know much about it. Below is the plot summary from the IMDb website:

Told with McMurtry's unique blend of historical fact and sheer storytelling genius, the novel follows the Cecil family's arduous journey by riverboat and wagon from Boone's Lick, Missouri, to Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming. Fifteen-year-old Shay narrates, describing the journey that begins when his Ma, Mary Margaret, decides to hunt down her elusive husband, Dick, to tell him she's leaving him. Without knowing precisely where he is, they set out across the plains in search of him, encountering grizzly bears, stormy weather, and hostile Indians as they go. With them are Shay's siblings, G.T., Neva, and baby Marcy; Shay's uncle, Seth; his Grandpa Crackenthorpe; and Mary Margaret's beautiful half-sister, Rose. During their journey they pick up a barefooted priest named Father Villy, and a Snake Indian named Charlie Seven Days, and persuade them to join in their travels. Written by Giorgio_C Boone's Lick revolves around a headstrong woman who drags her family on a rickety wagon from Boone's Lick, Mo., to the Wyoming fort where her husband lives. Moore plays the woman and Hanks plays her husband's brother, who escorts the woman, her four children and her father on the trek and falls in love with her during the perilous journey Written by Cat Stevens

If that isn't enough Larry McMurtry westerns for you, there's a book due to be released this October entitled A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove by Bill Wittliff. Below is a blurb from The University of Texas Press website:

"Lonesome Dove is a great book that had the rare fortune of being made into a great movie. And now, through Bill Wittliff's photographs, we have a third generation of Lonesome Dove artistry. The same creative power and conviction that allowed Larry McMurtry to transform a workaday scenario for an unproduced screenplay into one of the greatest novels of our time, and that transformed that novel into the greatest western movie ever made, are on display in this collection. A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove is a masterpiece begot by a masterpiece begot by a masterpiece." —Stephen Harrigan

Larry McMurtry's books and movies are my favorites. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see these movies or to get my hands on this picture book!

For those of you who are on MySpace and would like to add LD to your list of Myspace friends, here's a link to THE LONESOME DOVE Myspace site.

This isn't an official site, and the site itself isn't anything fancy, however, it might come in handy to have on your friends list. That's how I learned about the LD picture book.

Happy trails!