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The Coen brothers are writing and directing their first TV series The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Western is thought to have been too big in scope for a feature film

Christopher Hooton
Wednesday 11 January 2017 10:03 GMT
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Following Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and David O. Russell, Joel and Ethan Coen are the latest major filmmakers to try out television.

The Coens will write and direct The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, it has been announced, here’s all we know about it at this stage premise/plot-wise (as per Variety):

- It is a Western

- It will intertwine six storylines

- It is a limited series (so probably somewhere between three and six episodes)

- It was originally conceived as a feature film but is just too big in scope

Javier Bardem in the Coen's No Country for Old Men
Javier Bardem in the Coen's No Country for Old Men

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs will be produced by Annapurna Television and there are plans for some sort of combination television and theatrical release that means the series could also make it to the big screen as well as the small one.

The Coens are of course no stranger to Westerns, their filmography including True Grit and No Country for Old Men.

We recently learned that they have written the script for George Clooney’s next film as director, Suburbicon.

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