Deadline reports that AMC is in the midst of turning The Son, a bestselling 2013 novel by Philipp Meyer (above), into a drama series. Meyer is executive-producing alongside Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy, who developed Netflix’s horror series Hemlock Grove based on McGreevy’s novel, and Michael Connolly, an executive-producer on Hemlock Grove.
Originally eyed as an event series, The Son is being planned as a multi-season drama series by AMC. It’s described as a “multi-generational epic telling the story of America’s birth as a superpower through the bloody rise and fall of one Texas oil empire.”
Though it may not seem like it, this is a crucially important time for AMC. Its flagship show Breaking Bad, one of the most widely acclaimed dramas of all time, recently finished its swan song, and period drama Mad Men is on its way out with the second half of its final season coming next year. Meanwhile, zombie thriller The Walking Dead is somehow pulling in upwards of 28 million viewers per week, according to a recent story by The Hollywood Reporter.
But outside of those three series, AMC is struggling to create new ratings successes. The quickly cancelled Low Winter Sun was damned from the day that AMC presented it as the heir apparent to Breaking Bad, and computing drama Halt and Catch Fire didn’t take off in the ratings as the network had probably hoped it would, garnering a disappointing 1.2 million viewers for its premiere. Additionally, though American Revolution-set espionage thriller Turn debuted earlier this year to higher numbers than Halt and Catch Fire, it’s still far south of a hit.
So, The Son could be the show to breathe new life into AMC’s programming slate. Currently, the network has ordered pilots for dramas Galyntine, Knifeman and Preacher, but this adaptation seems to me like a much better bet. After all, many of the readers who extolled Meyer’s novel will be keenly interested to see AMC’s take, and The Son is the kind of ambitious series that should attract a big-name cast.
As always, we’ll keep you posted as more on this intriguing project as it develops, but as of now, The Son‘s potential seems extremely high.