Historian David McCullough thinks it's time John Adams got his due, and a new television production may just do the trick.

Tonight, HBO premieres a seven-part miniseries based on McCullough's book about Adams, a Founding Father whose importance is often lost amid the legends of compatriots such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, who teamed up to produce the 2001 HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers," are executive producers.

Paul Giamatti, who portrays Adams, said he considers it a bonus that the second president's legacy is so little known.

"Nobody has that really cemented idea about him in their heads, so it made it a little bit easier for me," Giamatti said.

The miniseries emphasizes Adams' role in persuading the 13 original colonies to battle Britain for their independence. Giamatti said it raises the question: "Would it all have happened if this guy hadn't dragged the whole country behind him into this thing?"

Through Adams, viewers are introduced to a who's who of American history, including Washington (David Morse), Jefferson (Stephen Dillane) and Benjamin Franklin (Tom Wilkinson). Also featured is Adams' remarkable relationship with his wife, Abigail (Laura Linney).

Director Tom Hooper said that being British helped him tell an unromanticized version of the American nation's founding.

Giamatti said filmmakers "certainly were very interested in getting in all that kind of real gritty detail." That includes scenes of a pensive Adams in front of the fireplace or elbow-deep in manure, and Abigail scrubbing the floors of their house. Hooper hopes such images cause the audience to "sit up and concentrate and actually maybe kind of relax and open themselves up to the story."

McCullough was skeptical when Hanks approached him about the project. But now the historian believes the movie accomplishes things his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Adams could not -- "and that pleases me tremendously."