“Dark Winds” is set in the early 1970s, and the new AMC drama series feels like a throwback with its simple storytelling and measured pace.
But the reasonably entertaining six-episode show — which debuts this week on the cable network and its sister streaming platform, AMC+, which will offer installments one week earlier moving forward — may be more interesting behind the scenes.
According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Robert Redford acquired the rights to Tony Hillerman’s novels centered around Navajo tribal police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee way back in 1986. Much more recently, the movie-industry giant recruited novelist George R.R. Martin — the mastermind behind the book series that spawned HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and a big Hillerman fan — to help finally bring the work to the screen.
