Susan Sarandon as Victoria Barkley. Sarandon won't make me forget Barbara Stanwyck, but that would be a great casting coup.
I'm talking about a big-screen remake of the 1960s Western series Big Valley, in which Stanwyck played the widow matriarch of the Barkley Ranch in California's San Joaquin Valley of the 1870s. Her grown children were Richard Long, Peter Breck, and a pre-Dynasty Linda Evans, and there was also a pre-Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors as Big Mama Barkley's stepson.
According to The Hollywood Reporter / Reuters (via Cinematical), Sarandon is "in talks" to play the tough widow who feared nothing. Kate Edelman Johnson, daughter of one of the show's creator, producer Louis F. Edelman (writer A.I. Bezzerides was his partner), is producing the project, written and to be directed by Daniel Adams (The Lightkeepers, The Golden Boys). Shooting is supposed to begin in May in New Mexico and Michigan. Perhaps Linda Evans and Lee Majors will have cameos?
Barbara Stanwyck's Victoria Barkley was nominated for three Emmys, winning one. Stanwyck also earned three Golden Globe nominations.
Another Western TV series that is scheduled to hit theaters in the not-too-distant future is Gunsmoke, to — possibly — star Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds. If Sarandon doesn't get to play Victoria Barkley, I'd forget Pitt and Reynolds and I'd cast her as Sheriff Matilda Dillon instead.