“We’re doing it as a six-part miniseries. So basically a six-hour movie.” Oyelowo revealed at the Paramount+ launch in the UK.
During yesterday’s Paramount+ UK rollout event, which celebrated the arrival of the streaming platform in the United Kingdom and Ireland, we got some important news from the streamer’s upcoming shows. Aside from revealing that there was an important title change to limited series 1923, the panel also enlisted two-time Academy Award nominee David Oyelowo to talk about 1883: The Bass Reeves Story. The spin-off series centers around the life and career of one of the most prolific lawmen in early American History.
Oyelowo revealed that 1883: The Bass Reeves Story is a six-episode series that’s going to be epic in scale, as it chronicles – and course-corrects – the story of an individual who had his identity greatly changed throughout the years. Oyelowo talked about the impressive story of the real Bass and revealed that the series is essentially a movie broken down into six parts:
“So Bass Reeves is a character who the Lone Ranger was actually based on. But unfortunately, he was whitewashed out of history. He was born into enslavement, went on to fight in the Civil War [and] then escaped to the Indian Territory; learned the Native American languages and skills, which ended up being applied to his career as a lawman, and [he] had the most prolific career. 3000 arrests in his career and someone whose exploits are truly legendary. We’re doing it as a six-part miniseries. So basically a six-hour movie.
[…] Now, back in the day when you watched ‘Ben-Hur’ or ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, that was epic storytelling, but you put a three-hour [or] four-hour film in front of people now [they’re like] “oh, gosh!” But you let them binge something that [is] six to ten hours, they’re all in. So I think it’s just a reframing of it. Maybe it’s just a mental leap people need to take to engage with the storytelling a little bit longer.”
In addition, the actor also commented on the fact that the slate of series created and produced by Academy Award winner Taylor Sheridan are not only great in scale, but also brimming with quality storytelling that ends up attracting huge industry names to star in them:
“Well, I’m getting to produce and make Bass Reeves with Taylor Sheridan. I think he’s doing a truly phenomenal job of building that platform. I mean, you know, ‘Yellowstone’ is an amazing show. ‘1883’, I think is just so poetic and lyrical and massive in scope and scale. ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ was another show starring Jeremy Renner that I loved. I just saw Jessica Chastain, who I know is doing a show called ‘Lioness’ with Michael Shannon and ‘Tulsa King’ with Sylvester Stallone. I mean, these are movie stars doing episodic, grand storytelling that people who are watching Paramount+ are going to be beneficiaries of this.”
1883: The Bass Reeves Story is an expansion of the hit spin-off series 1883, which in turn derived from the flagship hit series Yellowstone. Paramount+ is yet to announce a release date for the upcoming limited series.
