Release date of Texas history miniseries

History Channel announces release date of Texas history miniseries

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The History Channel will tackle the history of Texas on May 25, 2015, with "Texas Rising," an eight-hour miniseries about the Texas revolutionary fight and the rise of the Texas Rangers. (The ones with guns, not the baseball team.)

The miniseries was announced last March, ahead of key Texas independence anniversaries, but did not then have an exact release date.

Bill Paxton has been cast as Gen. Sam Houston, with Brendan Fraser, Ray Liotta, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Olivier Martinez, Thomas Jane, Crispin Glover, Jeremy Davies, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Christopher McDonald, Max Thieriot, Robert Knepper, Jeff Fahey, and Kris Kristofferson filling out the rest of the cast.

Roland Joffe will direct the series, which is in production.

Singer-songwriter Kristofferson will be playing U.S. President Andrew Jackson. Martinez, husband of actress Halle Berry, has been installed as Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

The miniseries is from the producers of the miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys," which also aired on the History Channel and also featured Paxton. The Texas series will air over four consecutive nights, according film news outlet Deadline.

The San Antonio Express-News previously profiled San Antonio native John Elvis, who was cast in "Texas Rising" as the half-Comanche son of a Texas Ranger. Fraser plays his
father, Ranger Billy Anderson.

The History Channel offered this synopsis of the series. It sounds like it will be a pretty bloody, gritty affair.

In 1836, west of the Mississippi was considered the Wild West and the Texas frontier was viewed as hell on earth. Crushed from the outside by Mexican armadas and attacked from within by ferocious Comanche tribes – no one was safe.

But this was a time of bravery, a time to die for what you believed in and a time to stand tall against the cruel rule of the Mexican General Santa Anna. The heroic General Sam Houston, the rag tag Rangers and the legendary "Yellow Rose of Texas," lead this story of the human will to win against insurmountable odds. At the end, the Texas flags stood tall and victorious, claiming a piece of history for all eternity.

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