Larry McMurtry wrote this in 1971 as a movie script. He intended for John Wayne to play Woodrow Call, James Stewart to play Gus McCrae, and Henry Fonda to play Jake Spoon, with Peter Bogdanovich directing. Wayne turned it down, and the project was shelved. Ten years later, McMurtry bought the script back, and wrote the book on which this miniseries was based.
In 1985, Suzanne De Passe bought the rights to Larry McMurtry's unpublished novel for $50,000, with the idea of doing a miniseries in conjunction with the release of the book. Every major network in America turned her down. After the novel was published, became a massive success, and won the Pulitzer Prize, every network that had turned her down contacted her to try to persuade her to make the miniseries with them.
Principal photography lasted for 16 weeks at six days a week, and encompassed 89 speaking parts, 1,000 extras, 30 wranglers, 100 horses, 90 crew, and 1,400 cattle. Some scenes were so complex they were shot from six different cameras at once.
Tommy Lee Jones owns a ranch in Texas, and breeds horses and cattle. He refused to use a stunt double for any of the riding scenes.
Despite the huge ratings, and massive critical acclaim, it lost the 1989 Outstanding Miniseries Emmy Award to Les orages de la guerre (1988).