Kevin Bacon is set to lead a new Hulu drama pilot, Southern Bastards, taking on the role of Earl, the son of the legendary Sheriff Bert. The project puts him at the center of a story about a tough but humble blue-collar Army veteran who heads into Craw County, Alabama, hoping to mend fences with his estranged daughter.
Bacon’s Earl is not the sort of man who slips quietly into town. He is willing to stir the hornet’s nest in Craw County, and that edge gives the pilot its charge. Reinaldo Marcus Green is directing and executive producing, while Bill Dubuque wrote the teleplay and serves as an executive producer. Matt Olmstead is attached as showrunner.
The pilot comes from Onyx Collective, POV Entertainment and Proximity Media, in association with Fifth Season, with Jason Aaron and Jason Latour executive producing the adaptation of their graphic novel series. Nia DaCosta shares story credit, and the producing team also includes Layne Eskridge, Ryan Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Zinzi Coogler, Simone Harris and Kate Barry, with Proximity Media creative executives Hannah Baker and D’Angelo Louis overseeing the project.
The casting lands as Bacon comes off the SXSW premiere of Family Movie, the horror comedy he directed and stars in opposite Kyra Sedgwick, Sosie Bacon and Travis Bacon. With Southern Bastards, Hulu is betting on a familiar face in a bruising Southern drama built around family repair, old loyalties and a lead character who looks ready to challenge the people around him instead of just surviving them.
That is also what gives the pilot its commercial appeal: Southern Bastards is being adapted from an award-winning graphic novel series with a built-in audience, but the story now has a star and creative team that suggest Hulu wants more than a faithful page-to-screen exercise. It wants a character drama with enough grit to match the source material.
The next step is the pilot itself. If Green’s take, Dubuque’s teleplay and Bacon’s casting connect, Southern Bastards could become one of Hulu’s sharper new drama bets, with Earl at the center of a story that is already built around conflict and consequences.
