Embodying Walt Whitman’s famous statement that “I am large, I contain multitudes”—although literary scholars continue to debate which, if any, hybrid cable networks and streaming platforms Whitman was thinking about when he wrote that line—AMC and AMC+ announced tonight that they’re attempting the unlikely trick of trying to lure in Dennis Quaid and Heated Rivalry fans all at once.
Specifically, the networks made a series of announcements at their upfront showcase in New York tonight, revealing, among other things, that Quaid’s show Thunder Road had been greenlit to series. Described by too-glib pundits—i.e., us—as “NASCAR Yellowstone,” the series will star Quaid as the patriarch of a racing dynasty struggling to contend with that dang ol’ future that just won’t stop coming. Created by John Fucso, the series will be showrun by Taylor Elmore, probably best known for his work on Justified; no word yet on who will co-star in the series as the various young folk irritating Quaid’s character (Duane “The Wrecking Ball” Whitlock) with their newfangled ideas about which way around a big circle stock cars should go.
On the far, far side of the demographic continuum, meanwhile, AMC also announced that it was picking up YAGA, the latest series from Crave—the Canadian streaming service that has, over the last few months, gone from “that network Americans only know about if they’re Letterkenny weirdos” to “the source of all money in modern television, i.e., Heated Rivalry.” A connection made much more explicit here, in so far as the mystery series is the first show that Rivalry star Hudson Williams has done since wrapping the first season of the sports romance. YAGA sounds slightly less like sexy fun, given that it’s being reported as a modern reimagining of the Baba Yaga myth, with Williams as “a young heir to a powerful fishery” who goes missing, while Schitt’s Creek‘s Noah Reid and Letterkenny‘s Clark Backo are investigators looking into his disappearance. For people not fully in the bag for Williams’ earlier work, the big appeal here will probably end up being Carrie-Anne Moss, who sounds like she might be playing the show’s updated version of the ancient witch herself: “A charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men.” (Given that Baba Yaga traditionally eats people, we assume that last line is meant to be read with a throaty chortle; meanwhile, it’s just fun to imagine Moss and Keanu Reeves hanging out and arguing about who’s the “real” Baba Yaga now.)
In addition to these pick-ups, AMC also gave out some details about other series it has in development right now: An adaptation of John Maxim’s Bannerman spy books, a TV version of Point Break (speaking of Reeves), and forward motion on Great American Stories, a series adapting classic American literary works that intends to start with a TV version of The Grapes Of Wrath.
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