![]() What this show is about is something that I’ve lived for the last 25 years being in the business.”īut “Monarch” also keeps an eye on the pop charts, with country-style cover versions of recent hits. “When I looked at the script, it just seemed like something that maybe I could contribute to as far as the authenticity of it,” Adkins said. That means we get to hear Adkins growl out classics like “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” and “Friends in Low Places,” for which his voice was seemingly made. One “Monarch” subplot finds Albie teaming up with a producer (Damon Dayoub) who wants to bring him back to basics. As the most prominent cast member with experience in the industry, Adkins is a bridge between the outlaw tradition of artists like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard and the more pop-flavored style that has racked up so much radio play in recent years. To stand a chance, a country series must do well by the music, and Adkins was a key element in pulling that off. “We’re very strong in the South, Southeast, Southwest, and in Middle America in terms of our connection with our audience and where our programming resonates the most.” “The country music audience is a passionate, huge audience, and the overlap between that audience with the Fox audience is quite significant,” said Michael Thorn, the president of entertainment at Fox Entertainment, in a recent call. I love that stuff.”įox has long considered itself a leader in musical programming, offering scripted shows like “Empire” and “Glee” as well as reality series like “American Idol” and “The Masked Singer.” Having surveyed the current landscape, which includes Paramount’s countrified streaming hit “Yellowstone,” Fox determined this was the time to make its country play. Bad behavior competes with messy love at every turn. Part “King Lear,” part prime-time soap opera, “Monarch” plays like Fox’s hip-hop hit “Empire” in a Stetson. (Hilfers is the creator and, alongside Berman, an executive producer.) The Romanov dynasty has been replaced by the Roman family, a bickering, spiteful bunch that clings to its reputation as the first family of country music and leaves a trail of corpses in its wake. Hilfers’s idea has since evolved into the new Fox drama “Monarch,” premiering Sunday. As she recalled in a recent video interview, she had a flash: “What if we reimagined the Romanov dynasty as a family of country music stars in Austin, Texas?” Berman liked the pitch. ![]() She had grown up in a big Maryland family that liked to jam in the living room with friends, her dad leading the way on guitar. Berman mentioned that Fox was looking into doing a dramatic series based in the country music world. A few years ago, the writer Melissa London Hilfers was having lunch with her friend Gail Berman, the TV and movie producer.
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