AMC gives straight-to-series order to Texas oil drama ‘The Son’

AMC announced a straight-to-series order for the Texas oil drama “The Son” during its Friday session at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena.

Based on the Philipp Meyer novel that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014, “The Son” looks at America’s birth as a superpower through the prism of one Texas family over six generations.

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The 10-episode first season of the series, which is being produced by AMC Studios and Sonar Entertainment, will follow take viewers through two periods: One looks at the story of young Eli McCullough after he is kidnapped and indoctrinated into a Comanche tribe in 1849; the other flashes forwards 60 years to an adult Eli struggling to maintain his family’s cattle empire during the Bandit Wars of South Texas.

Meyer will serve as an executive producer, along with Lee Shipman, Brian McGreevy and showrunner Kevin Murphy (“Defiance”). Jenna Glazier will produce for Sonar.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be bringing ‘The Son’ to life on AMC,” Meyer said in a statement. “This will be a big show in which we dig deep into the epic story of our country. AMC has given us a huge template, and we will be going even further and deeper into our characters and their stories than I could have ever imagined when I wrote the book.”

The series is expected to premiere in 2017.

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