SundanceTV goes noir with drama

US cable channel SundanceTV has commissioned a drama series based on a southern US noir novel from Joe Lansdale.

Hap and Leonard will follows a pair of martial art expert best friends – one a white working class labourer and the other a black 6”5 gay Vietnam veteran – struggling through misadventures in east Texas in the 1980s.

AMC Networks-owned Sundance will wholly-own the 6x60mins series, which begins shooting in 2015 and goes to air in early 2016.

Jim Mickle and Nick Damici, who worked on the film adaptation of author Lansdale’s Cold in July, created Hap and Leonard, with Sundance Studios attached to produce. Mickle will direct, with Nick Shumaker and Jeremy Platt executive producing along with co-EPs Lansdale and Lowell Northrop and consulting producer Linda Moran.

SundanceTV, which rebranded earlier this year, counts The Honourable Woman, Top of the Lake, The Red Road and the upcoming One Child among its original scripted offers.