MOVIE/ MINISERIES & REALITY ISSUE

Hatfie l d s & Mc Co y sEnds Its JourneyBangTo The Small Screen With AKevin Costner, Leslie Greif and Bill Paxton – Getty ImagesBy Nellie AndreevaIt might have taken three decades to turn America’smost famous family feud into a miniseries, but it’s beenworth the effort for veteran TV and film producerLeslie Greif, whose Hatfields & McCoys brokebasic cable ratings records in its Memorial Day debut.The three-part story about the infamous post-CivilWar clash starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxtonranked as the top three most-watched entertainmenttelecasts of all time on ad-supported cable, with theconclusion drawing a record 14.3 million viewers. Themini’s success even earned Greif a congratulatory callfrom Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, which co-owns Historyparent A&E Networks. It’s a fitting conclusion for apassion project that no one seemed interested in.Greif, a history buff, first got the idea for Hatfields &McCoys when he started in the TV business in the early1980s. Broadcast television was attracting huge audienceswith event miniseries like Roots and Shogun, and hethought a miniseries about the well known rivalry wouldbe the perfect calling card to break into the business.“It is a revenge story,” Greif explains. “I thought it hadall the great drama, on top of it being a true story. Ithought it would make for riveting television.”There was some initial interest – one of the hottestwriters at the time, Bill Kerby (The Rose), came onboardto write the mini, which was set up at CBS. But afterlanguishing at the network for a while, it ended up inturnaround.For the next three decades, the project bouncedaround. Despite attracting top talent – Burt Lancasterwas attached to star at one point, with Burt Reynoldsand Tom Selleck also showing strong interest throughthe years – the mini never got a green light.“I presented it to any network that would considerdoing it – there wasn’t a network executive that hadn’theard my passion, my pledge, my pleas,” Greif says. Itgot to a point where he would sit down with networkbrass for a meeting, and they would start off by saying,“Please, don’t bring up the Hatfields & McCoys again.”Greif thought he had exhausted every perceivableoption when three years ago he read that Historywas looking to enter original programming. He tookhis Hatfields & McCoys pitch to the channel’s presidentNancy Dubuc. “In one meeting, she said yes,” Greif says,calling Dubuc “the visionary broadcaster of our generation.”Costner was then approached to star. “He calledme and said he would do it on one condition: ‘Do notchange a word in the script.’ So we didn’t cut one thing.”The project was originally shopped “as a feature onTV” and a two-part miniseries. Because of Costner’srequest, it was expanded to a three-part event, whichHistory aired on three consecutive nights. And despiteairing decades after the heyday of event miniseries,Greif feels Hatfields & McCoys was able to recapture themagic of those big telecasts of yesteryear.“It has become an event, with people watching togetherand talking about it,” Greif says.Despite his Hatfields & McCoys idea getting shut downearly on, Greif did make his producing debut with anevent miniseries, 1986’s Sins starring Joan Collins andTimothy Dalton. He gradually expanded into features,scripted series, including the long-running Walker, TexasRanger, which he co-created and executive produced,and TV documentaries, including 2007’s Brando. Andwhen the longform arena started to shrink as broadcastand some cable networks abandoned the genre,Greif focused a lot of his efforts in the fast-growingreality field, where he has produced a number ofseries, including cable hit Gene Simmons: Family Jewels onHistory sibling A&E.Now Greif, an Emmy nominee for Brando, faces thepossibility of a second Emmy nomination for Hatfields& McCoys. And Emmy voters always have the appetitefor vintage stories: Another blockbuster westernminiseries, AMC’s Broken Trail, ended up winning theEmmy in 2007. “It would be a huge honor,” Greif saysof a possible nomination.The longform field is a lot more crowded than it wasin 2007 when Broken Trail won because last year, theTV Academy merged the best original movie and bestminiseries categories. While he stresses that he’d belucky to get a nom in the top longform category, Greifalso would like to see all nominees on similar footing,noting that the best lightweight boxer doesn’t stand achance against a heavyweight one.“Doing a two-hour TV movie is not the same as a sixhourminiseries or a 12-hour limited series,” he pointsout. “The writing, directing, the scope, the attitude andthe money are very different.”In addition to TV movies having to compete with miniseries,some programs that air as regular series alsohave qualified for the best movie/miniseries category,avoiding more fierce competition in the best seriescategories. Recent cases include the first season ofDownton Abbey last year and American HorrorStory this year.Whatever happens at this year’s Emmys, Greif saysthere’s no question that Hatfields & McCoys has completedits journey – it won’t go the way of other successfulminiseries, such as USA’s The Starter Wife, whichspawned a regular series. “There will be no Season 2,”Greif says. “This is the fork of the story. “Greif (right) on set28EMMY AWARDS PRINT EDITIONS 2012