The Grapes Of Wrath Adaptation To Launch New AMC Anthology Series
A TV series about the Great Depression not set in the present will launch a new AMC/AMC+ anthology.
AMC Networks announced on Monday that Great American Stories, a new TV franchise produced by AMC Studios and built on iconic American stories, will kick off with an adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
Previous adaptations of Steinbeck's timeless 1939 novel include the 1940 film starring Henry Fonda and a 1990 Broadway play led by Gary Sinise.
Each season of Great American Stories will be devoted to a different "celebrated work, historical moment, or individual narrative celebrating and highlighting the American spirit."
Rolin Jones (Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire) will adapt The Grapes of Wrath for AMC and then manage the franchise, working with other creative talents connected to individual seasons. Mark Johnson, who is overseeing AMC's Anne Rice Immortal Universe and whose long list of producing credits includes Breaking Bad, Halt and Catch Fire and Rectify, will also help launch the franchise.
"For more than a year we have been searching for the perfect story to launch our next big television franchise, and we found it in The Grapes of Wrath, which is as timely and relevant today as it was when first published in 1939," said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks.
Said Season 1 showrunner Jones, "We're thinking about Great American Stories like one of those resolute car factories in Michigan – bring in visionary creators, give them an assembly line of singular talent to build the thing, hand them the keys and get the hell out of the way. This is Dan McDermott's big, bold, torpedo bat swing at AMC. He's hired me to roll a beauty off the factory floor every year. I hope to never have another job for the rest of my career."
AMC previously embraced the anthology format with The Terror, a three-season franchise that told stories about a British naval expedition stuck in the ice while searching for the Northwest Passage, events in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, and an upcoming adaptation of Victor LaValle's The Devil in Silver.