Coen Brothers bring Fargo to TV

5 August 2013 Last updated at 04:11 ET Billy Bob Thornton previously starred in the Coen Brothers’ film The Man Who Wasn’t There The Coen Brothers are turning their Oscar-winning movie Fargo into a TV series, with long-term collaborator Billy Bob Thornton in the lead role.

The 1996 film starred Frances McDormand as a determined, pregnant police chief on the trail of two bumbling criminals.

She won an Oscar for the role, while Joel and Ethan Coen took home the best original screenplay award.

The 10-part TV series, for US channel FX, will involve brand new characters and a new scenario.

Thornton, 57, will play Lorne Malvo, described as a “a rootless, manipulative man who meets a small town insurance salesman and sets him on a path of destruction.”

The actor previously starred in the Coen Brothers’ films The Man Who Wasn’t There and Intolerable Cruelty. His other screen credits include Bad Santa and Monster’s Ball.

FX network boss John Landgraf said that, although there was no cross-over with the original, the Fargo TV show would be “remarkably true to the film”.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s films include O Brother, Where Art Thou? and True Grit

Filming will take place in Canada, and the drama is expected to be shown in the US next spring.

The Coen Brothers are executive producers, marking their first venture into television after a film career that his produced cult classics such as The Big Lebowski and box office hits like No Country For Old Men.

Fargo, regarded as their mainstream breakthrough, was included in the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest American Movies list, and inducted into the US National Film Registry in 2006.

It opens with a caption saying “this is a true story” but Joel Coen later admitted “it was actually all made up”.

“We thought that if we did something where we told the audience up front was a true story, that they’d allow you to do things they wouldn’t normally allow you to do, if they thought it was fiction,” he told Venice Magazine in 1998.

The Coen brother premiered their latest film Inside Llewyn Davis at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

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Coen Brothers bring Fargo to TV

St Thomas brothers meet brutal death

THE rustic farming district of Rowlandsfield in the hills of eastern St Thomas has been thrown into mourning following the execution-style murders of two brothers at their farm on Monday.

The brothers have been identified as 43-year-old farmer and pastor of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church, Herman Rowe and Norman Rowe, 52.The brothers are known to undertake a daily routine of walking about three miles to their farm just after dawn each day and tending to their produce. When they did not return at their accustomed time, their relatives became concerned and made several attempts to contact them.However, calls to their cellphones went unanswered and relatives, along with a group of citizens, took the long trek up to the farm in search of the two prominent community members. It was then that they stumbled on a Toyota van which the brothers owned. Soon after they made the gruesome discovery of the bullet-riddled bodies of the two men lying face down close to each other.Herman was shot in the face, the upper right side of his chest and his right arm. He was clutching a machete.His brother was shot in the back and neck. He was clutching a knife.At one section of the farm two pairs of water boots and two machetes were seen. The Rowes’ relatives said the boots and tools belonged to the slain brothers.Yesterday, Scene of Crime detectives revisited the area and rummaged through the heavy brush and a field of sweet potatoes where the brothers were found, in a bid to unearth more clues.Earlier, the police had recovered several 9mm spent shells from the scene.Head of the St Thomas Police Division Superintendent Merrick Watson was visibly perturbed about the brutal slayings, said it was unusual for crimes of that nature to take place in that section of the parish.“Perhaps the first time a police vehicle has come up here was yesterday (Monday). We will have to retrace their steps and turn over every stone. Sometimes murder emanates from some very simple things,” Watson said.A nephew of the slain brothers could not come to terms with the reality that both his uncles were taken out in such a brutal fashion as none of them were known to be wrongdoers or involved in any conflict with anyone.“They have been farmers since they were teenagers. Them don’t work for people. All they know is farming,” the man said.As the police searched and grieving residents milled abut the farm, Margarine Francis, a sister of the slain men, stood several feet away with a confused look on her face.“Ah boy it rough. You never can tell what going happen to you in life,” Francis said as she fought back tears.The farm is about 10 acres and is located close to the border of St Thomas and Portland and is filled with mounds of sweet potatoes, yams, ginger, pumpkins and dasheen. The road leading to the farm is treacherous at best and the farm is located just over seven kilometres from the Golden Grove main road in a very remote area.“No one would have heard the shots and the killer could have made his escape easily without detection through the bushes. It seems their killer or killers knew them as it appears when they fell the killer went over them and shot them in the head to make sure they were dead,” a policeman on the scene said.The police said last night that they had stepped up their probe into the double killing but had not yet established a motive.Water boots and machetes, which residents said belonged to the slain brothers.Crime scene detectives and other officers lead relatives and friends of the slain brothers to the spot where the murders occurred. (PHOTOS: LIONEL ROOKWOOD)Herman Rowe (right) and his brother Norman Rowe who were killed on their farm in Rowlandsfield, St Thomas, on Monday.

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St Thomas brothers meet brutal death