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Never work in broadcast TV: Apatow

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LOS ANGELES, July 7, (RTRS): Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel “Sharp Objects” is heading to the small screen this weekend. The eight-episode miniseries premieres Sunday on HBO, bringing another chilling, twisted story to the premium cabler, where “Big Little Lies” debuted to a massive audience and fanfare last year.

Here’s everything we know so far about “Sharp Objects.” It premieres this weekend. “Sharp Objects” will premiere Sunday, July 8, at 9 p.m. on HBO. New episodes air every Sunday. The stars aligned. Like its “Big” counterpart, the show features a star-studded cast led by Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, and Chris Messina. The series marks a reunion for Adams and Messina, who starred as a couple in the 2009 comedy-drama “Julie and Julia.” In “Sharp Objects,” Adams plays a reporter who returns to her small hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.

It will mark Flynn’s third novel to be adapted for the screen.

Flynn’s debut novel, “Sharp Objects,” hit bookshelves in 2006. Since then, Flynn went on to publish two more books, “Dark Places” and “Gone Girl” — both of which have gotten the big-screen treatment. Flynn made her screenwriting debut on David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. The movie, which hit theaters in 2014 to critical acclaim, earned her a Golden Globe nomination. However, “Dark Places” — the 2015 thriller with Charlize Theron — wasn’t as well received. Flynn also co-wrote “Widows” with Steve McQueen, starring Viola Davis and opening in theaters later this year.

Adams was originally set to star in “Dark Places.”

“Sharp Objects” marks the first time Adams has worked on a Flynn adaptation, but she was also in talks to star in “Dark Places” in 2015. However, Theron ultimately took the role.

The series is created and co-written by Marti Noxon.

The “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alum is no stranger to writing shows about kickass women; she co-created the Lifetime series “UnREAL” and executive produces Bravo’s first original scripted series, “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.” She recently adapted another bestselling novel, “Dietland,” for AMC.

“Sharp Objects” comes from the director of “Big Little Lies.”

Jean-Marc Vallee may be the man behind such Oscar fare as “Wild” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” but he also earned accolades for directing the first season of the widely praised “Big Little Lies” for HBO last year, netting himself an Emmy for best director of a limited series along the way. Vallee returns to HBO to helm “Sharp Objects” and, as some critics have pointed out, the two series have more than a few things in common. It’s even darker than “Big Little Lies.” Despite tackling dark subject matters, “Big Little Lies” managed to be both comedic and sinister along the way, portraying the story of the unraveling relationships of moms in a California beach town. “Sharp Objects,” however, has a Southern Gothic tone with its Missouri setting. As Variety’s Daniel D’Addario put it: “Its handling of truly twisted subject matter (in scripts by Marti Noxon and Flynn herself) is frank and unblinking, digging out insight about the most damaged of people and the harm they do to themselves and to others. With a cast led by Adams operating at the peak of her abilities, ‘Sharp Objects’ is dazzlingly itself, a show in thrall to the horror of its premise but one that finds nuance within unremitting darkness.”

Welcome to “Remote Controlled,” a podcast from Variety featuring the best and brightest in television, both in front of and behind the camera.

In this week’s episode, Variety’s managing editor of television, Cynthia Littleton, talks with multi-hyphenate Judd Apatow on how he’s found success in helping others craft intimate comedies such as HBO’s “Girls” and “Crashing” and Netflix’s “Love” and “Lady Dynamite.” He also discusses how producing the HBO documentary “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling” helped him process his grief at the loss of his friend and mentor, and as the 20th anniversary of “Freaks and Geeks” premiere approaches next year, Apatow explains why he has no desire to work in broadcast TV again.

“There is nothing that has made my life better than not working for network television,” Apatow says. “It’s creativity with a gun to your head. They can cancel you at any moment.” By contrast, his experience in the commercial-free world of HBO and Netflix has been far more gratifying because they typically stick with a show for a full season before making the call to renew or cancel. “It’s not like you’re in the middle of your series and Ted Sarandos walks on the set and says ‘Unplug it.’ You’re getting to finish at least,” Apatow says.

The marketplace for creatives couldn’t be more buoyant these days with the influx of spending on original content by Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and others. For Apatow, the issue is not whether he can sell projects but how selective he needs to be in deciding how to allocate his most precious resource — his time. At present, his Apatow Productions banner is a free-agent in television, while he has a first-look directing deal for features with Universal Pictures.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: The “Steven Universe” universe is reeling, hopeful and excited from the season five story arc, with Ruby proposing to Sapphire on the July 4 episode. The Cartoon Network series has always set out to embrace underrepresented communities, albeit in cartoon form, and issues that children (and adults) find hard to talk about.

Rebecca Sugar, the creator of “Steven Universe,” says, “I trust children very much. I always feel that children will understand, because children are still learning,” adding that “the whole thing is a catalyst for conversation.”

Animation lover Sugar notes that she had never seen cartoon characters that “looked like me,” a non-binary person.

And with season five’s “The Question,” Ruby and Sapphire not only explore their relationship and who they as individuals but also, Sugar notes, the goal was to go beyond the classic cartoon couples in which one is a male version of, say, a rabbit and the female half of the couple just has eyelashes. “I wanted to really create an image of a queer couple that makes sense together,” Sugar says. “Usually the couple is a man and a woman. But you don’t show that love can exist between two men or two women. I wanted to create equal-opportunity love stories for children,” says Sugar.

“It’s very important to me that all the characters are gender expansive and that ‘Steven Universe’ is a gender-expansive show,” Sugar adds.