Scottish to his tartans, David Mackenzie is fast becoming an adopted son of the US. For his next project, TV drama pilot Damnation, the Hell Or High Water director is shifting from the dusty south west of Comancheria to the dusty heartland states.
The USA Network show is a 1930s saga of big business concerns and poor, struggling families, with possibly a sprinkling of Elmer Gantry-like religious hypocrisy, crime and demagoguery thrown in for good measure. "It's set in the Great Depression and based on true events,” Mackenzie tells Empire of this heady-sounding mix, “It's about strikers and strike-breakers in Iowa, almost the Dust Bowl, which is bloody interesting.” A bit Steinbeck-y, then? "Kind of. A little bit more amped than that, but yeah."
The show is the brainchild of writer/poet/all-round multi-hypenate Tony Tost, the man behind A&E’s Western crime drama Longmire. He's a likely kindred spirit to Mackenzie, whose new crime Western is out this week and taps into similar themes.
The story focuses on Seth Davenport, an insurrectionist posing as a preacher. Up against him is a strikebreaker called Creeley Turner, firmly in the pay of rich industrialists and more stick than carrot in his M.O. "Is it violent? Yeah,” adds Mackenzie. "I’m excited about doing something that, again, feels kind of political.""
This one is well worth keeping an eye on. Casting news should follow soon.