History comes with miniseries about Texas Rangers by the creators of ‘Hatfields & McCoys’

History has green-lighted ‘Texas Rising’ (working title), a miniseries which will premiere in 2015. Responsible for the project, on which the cable network has already been working for a year and a half, is Leslie Greif, producer of History’s first miniseries, the successful ‘Hatfields & McCoys’. The series has at its disposal a great cast led by ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ star Bill Paxton, who received an Emmy nomination for his role of Randall McCoy. The project will focus on the Texan Revolution and the rise of the legendary Texas Rangers.

Paxton will play Sam Houston, the founder of the Texas Rangers. He will be accompanied by Brendan Fraser as Billy Anderson, a Texas Ranger connected to the Comanche Indians, and Ray Liotta as Lorca, a survivor of the Alamo looking for revenge. Jeffrey Dean Morgan will play ‘Deaf’ Smith, a deaf and old veteran of the Texas Rangers. Thomas Jane will play James Wykoff, a man who lives in hostile Indian territory, and Oliver Martinez will play the president-general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a dictator from Mexico. Besides them , we’ll get to see Chad Michael Murray as Mirabeau Lamar, a Texan soldier helping in the fight to win San Jacinto, and Michael Rapaport as Sgt. Ephraim Knowles, a deserter and coward who’ll become a hero. And finally there’s Max Thieriot as Jack Hays, a voluntary freedom fighter who’ll become the youngest Texas Ranger of his time.

Roland Joffe will direct this miniseries of A + E Studios and ITV Studios America, and it will be produced by Thinkfactory Media with Greif as executive producer. Greif has also co-written the scripts for all four two-hour long episodes of ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ together with producer Darrell Fetty. ‘Hatfields’ co-writer Ted Mann contributed to the first two hours of the miniseries. “With series such as ‘Hatfields & McCoys’, ‘The Bible’, and ‘Vikings’, History has made an important contribution to the creation of high-quality scripted historical dramas,” according to History’s Dirk Hoogstra. “The Texan Revolution was one of the most heartbreaking and inspiring events from our history. To do the story justice will be an enormous venture and we can’t wait to start production with one of the best team in the television business.”

If the west of the Mississippi was considered the Wild West in 1836, then Texas was seen as Hell on earth. People were crushed from the outside by the Mexican armada and attacked from within, by the ferocious Comanche tribes. But it was also an era of courage, of dying for your principles and of facing the cruel reign of the Mexican general Santa Anna without fear. It’s a story about human willpower when confronted with insurmountable affairs and about claiming a piece of history that will remain for all eternity. “It’s exciting to be working again with Bill Paxton and History, a team that has created television history with ‘Hatfields & McCoys’”, as said by Greif. “The battle for the independence of Texas was epic and really was the battle for the future of America.”