Two-time Emmy winner Nicole Kidman (The Undoing), nine-time Emmy nom Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan), The White Lotus standout Meghann Fahy, two-time Critics Choice Award winner Dakota Fanning (The Alienist), and the Flora and Son duo of Eve Hewson and Jack Reynor are in various stages of negotiations to star in Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, sources tell Deadline.
The limited series, to be directed and exec produced by Emmy winner Susanne Bier (The Undoing), comes from Gail Berman’s The Jackal Group and Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps.
Netflix declined to comment.
The show was previously set up at Fox, which unveiled its move to Netflix and its reconfigured creative team last August. It is based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, published by Little, Brown and Company in 2018. It’s a six-episode murder mystery following Nantucket native Celeste Otis, who on the Fourth of July is about to marry the perfect man, who just so happens to be from the wealthiest family in the area. But when a body is discovered floating in the harbor on the morning of what was to be the #weddingoftheyear, everyone at the party is suddenly a suspect.
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Ripley, an upcoming Showtime drama starring Andrew Scott, has found a new home at Netflix. Deals are still being finalized but the limited series from The Night Of’s Steven Zaillian, based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling quintet of Tom Ripley novels, is headed to the global streamer, I hear. Reps for Netflix and Showtime declined comment.
The relocation happened pretty fast over the last few days, sources said. When Deadline revealed last week that another upcoming Showtime series, drama Three Women, was being shopped after the network had opted not to proceed with it ahead of its integration into Paramount+, Ripley, which is in early stages of post-production, was still targeting a late 2023-early 24 launch on Showtime. (Three Women, whose first season is completed, is closing in on a pickup at Starz.)
While Ripley, which also stars Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning, is months from being ready to air, there had been buzz about the title among other premium networks and streamers. I hear the series’ executive producer Garrett Basch and WME only started exploring a move following the announcement earlier this week of Showtime’s new programming strategy built on TV universes with multiple Billions and Dexter spinoffs in the works. Netflix stepped in and bought the project preemptively after reviewing some footage, sources said.
I hear the eight-episode Ripley, based primarily on the The Talented Mr. Ripley novel, was designed as a limited series, in the vein of Zaillian’s acclaimed The Night Of, but there is a possibility to go beyond the first installment if it’s a hit.
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Dakota Fanning is doubling down on Showtime roles.
The Alienist: Angel of Darkness and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actress is joining drama Ripley opposite Andrew Scott.
It comes after she was cast in Showtime’s scripted anthology drama series The First Lady (w/t) as Susan Elizabeth Ford, the only daughter and youngest child of President Gerald and Betty Ford.
In Ripley, Fanning will play Marge Sherwood, an American living in Italy who suspects darker motives underlie the affability of Tom Ripley, played by Fleabag star Scott.
Based on Patricia Highsmith’s books, the show comes from The Night Of’s Steven Zaillian.
The series follows Tom Ripley, a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, who is hired by a wealthy man to try to convince his vagabond son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), who is living a comfortable, trust-funded ex-pat life in Italy, to return home. Tom’s acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder.
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Elle Fanning, star and executive producer of Civic Center Media/MRC Television’s Hulu series The Great, is expanding her relationship with the indie studio partnership. She and her sister Dakota Fanning have teamed to launch Lewellen Pictures production company and have entered a first-look television deal with the studio, a joint venture between UTA and MRC. The Fanning sisters plan to develop feature film and television projects, as well as other forms of media, including podcasts.
Their first project under the pact is an adaptation of Megan Miranda’s bestselling novel The Last House Guest, which is being developed as a crime thriller series. Sarah Walker (The Secrets She Keeps, Wentworth) will write and executive produce the series. It centers on an intimate friendship between two girls who fall violently in love with each other’s differences, which, in the end, create doubt, betrayal and tragedy. The Fannings will executive produce alongside Brittany Kahan Ward and Mary Jane Skalski for Echo Lake Entertainment.
“Elle has brought such perspective and thoughtfulness as an executive producer on The Great,” said Elise Henderson, President of MRC Television. “We are excited by the vision she and Dakota have for Lewellen Pictures and for MRC Television to provide a home for the stories they will tell.”
Elle Fanning has received Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominations for her work on The Great, which is now in production on its second season for Hulu. She recently starred in Sally Potter’s The Roads Not Taken and Netflix’s All The Bright Places, the latter of which she also produced.
Dakota Fanning was recently was seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and TNT’s Angel of Darkness. She will next star in The First Lady for Showtime.
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Those wishing to see Elle and Dakota Fanning in WWII drama The Nightingale will have to wait even longer. Sony is pushing the film to Dec. 23, 2022. It previously had been moved to December 22 of this year. Elle Fanning currently is in production on Hulu/MRC’s second season of The Great.
Christmas falls on a Sunday that year, and Nightingale will square off against Paramount’s Babylon on Dec. 25 and an untitled Illumination and Universal title on Wednesday Dec. 21, 2022.
In addition, Sony is dating Stage 6 Films’ R-rated romantic comedy Long Weekend for March 12. Pic follows Bart’s (Finn Wittrock of American Horror Story) chance encounter with the enigmatic Vienna (Zoë Chao), which leads to a whirlwind weekend together. The two fall fast and hard, but both carry secrets that could be their undoing or the chance for a fresh start. [Source]
TNT has moved up the season premiere of The Alienist: Angel of Darkness to Sunday, July 19. Two episodes will air back to back that Sunday, starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The series will continue as a four week event with two episodes airing every Sunday thereafter at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The season runs through August 9.
The move eliminates the one week gap that had existed after the end of TNT’s current prestige series, Snowpiercer. [Source]
J.K. Rowling’s immensely popular book that started it all — “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” — will be read by a lineup of celebrities chapter-by-chapter, in a series of free videos and audio recordings to be doled out over the next several months.
Rowling’s Wizarding World announced seven readers for the special event on Twitter today: Daniel Radcliffe, Stephen Fry, David Beckham, Dakota Fanning, Claudia Kim, Noma Dumezweni and Eddie Redmayne, with more to come. Each will read different sections of the beloved fantasy (known as “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” outside the U.S.), with its themes of family, friendship, courage and overcoming adversity, for families and fans around the world.
All 17 chapters of the book will be released between now and mid-summer. Videos will be posted weekly on harrypotterathome.com, with an audio-only version available for free on Spotify.
Kicking off the series of video readings will be Harry Potter himself: Daniel Radcliffe, who will read the book’s first chapter, “The Boy Who Lived,” streaming today on Wizarding World (at this link) on Spotify (at this link).
The special series is part of Harry Potter at Home, an initiative developed by Wizarding World Digital and Rowling’s agency, the Blair Partnership, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with the help of partners including Warner Bros., Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Pottermore Publishing.
The initiative includes an open licence to teachers allowing them to post recordings of themselves reading Harry Potter stories on educational platforms and networks and a dedicated hub of information and activities at harrypotterathome.com. In addition, Amazon’s Audible currently is making the audiobook of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (narrated by Jim Dale) available to stream for free via Audible Stories. [Source]
Sony’s The Nightingale WWII drama starring Elle and Dakota Fanning, which was suppose to come out at the end of this year, has been pushed to Dec. 22, 2021 due to the COVID-19 production shutdown.
Real-life sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning will play on-screen sisters in the coming-of-age story adapted from Kristin Hannah’s international bestseller. Pic, which is being directed by Melanie Laurent, is set on the eve of World War II and follows the sisters’ struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France. The story was inspired by the courageous women of the French Resistance who helped downed Allied airmen escape Nazi-occupied territory and hid Jewish children.
The project reteams Laurent with Elle Fanning after the duo worked on the 2018 movie Galveston together.
The Nightingale has been published in 45 languages, and went on to sell 3.5 million copies in the U.S. alone and became a No. 1 New York Times Bestseller for a total of 114 weeks on the list. [Source]
The release date for TriStar’s “The Nightingale,” starring Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning, has now been unset.
In December, TheWrap exclusively reported that Mélanie Laurent (“Galveston”) would direct the period drama from a script by Dana Stevens. Elizabeth Cantillon was to produce through her production company The Cantillon Company. The two sisters were to unite for the first time on screen to play sisters, based on Kristin Hannah’s worldwide best-seller of the same name.
“The Nightingale,” which was in preproduction before worldwide film shoots halted in March, was due to be released on Christmas Day this year. Production is expected to restart once it is safe to do so.
“The Nightingale” follows two sisters coming of age in France on the eve of World War II and their struggle to survive the German occupation of France. The story is inspired by the courageous women of the French Resistance who helped downed Allied airmen escape Nazi-occupied territory and hid Jewish children.
Hannah’s book became a hit after it was published in 2015. It has since been published in 45 languages and sold more than 3.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. It has become No. 1 New York Times best-seller and spent a total of 114 weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List. It was also named the best book of the year by BuzzFeed, iTunes, Library Journal, The Wall Street Journal, Goodreads and others. [Source]