David Farnor | On 27, Feb 2016

Update: The date for Hap and Leonard’s release is Friday 4th March, not Thursday 3rd March as originally published.

Amazon Prime Video will be the UK TV home for SundanceTV’s Hap and Leonard, VODzilla.co can exclusively reveal.

The “swamp noir” stars James Purefoy (The Following), Michael Kenneth Williams (Boardwalk Empire) and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men). The show is set in the late 1980s and follows the titular two best friends and Hendricks’ femme fatale, alongside a whole bunch of eccentric characters, including a crew of washed-up revolutionaries, a pair of murderous psycho-killers and the fuzz.

Purefoy plays Hap Collins, an East Texas white boy with a weakness for Southern women, while Williams plays Leonard Pine, a gay, black Vietnam vet with a hot temper. But when Hap’s ex-wife, Trudy (Hendricks), resurfaces with a deal they can’t refuse, a simple get-rich-quick scheme snowballs into bloody mayhem.

The six-episode series is based on the novels by Joe Lansdale and, perhaps most exciting of all, is created by Jim Mickle and Nick Damici, who previously adapted Lansdale’s Cold in July for the screen. Judging by how well that turned out, Hap and Leonard has all the signs of becoming March’s surprise TV hit.

Episode 1 of the show will premiere on Amazon Prime Video in the UK on Friday 4th March, within 48 hours of its US debut. Episodes will then arrive every Friday following their American broadcast.

Amazon’s exclusive release may come as a surprise to some, following the launch of AMC’s own UK channel last year on BT TV (SundanceTV is owned by AMC). But the show was green-lit way back in 2014 and Amazon already had a deal in place before the launch of AMC’s UK channel for the first-run broadcast of AMC and SundanceTV titles, including TURN: Washington’s Spies, Halt and Catch Fire and The Red Road. Indeed, the arrival of Hap and Leonard arrives not long after the UK premiere of Into the Badlands, AMC’s martial arts series, on Amazon – a show that BT TV’s AMC channel is now planning to show later this year. To see the full line-up of AMC shows on Amazon Prime Video, click here – or check out our guide to what else is coming soon to Amazon Prime Video in March.

Here’s a trailer for the show:

Photos: Sundance.tv

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