‘Big Little Lies’ Author Already Has a Spinoff in Mind
A third season of “Big Little Lies” seems unlikely, but some inventive viewers might be wondering whether a spinoff could be an option.
It wouldn’t be completely out of character with the series — the A-list drama, which was adapted from Liane Moriarty’s novel of the same name, began as a limited series and was never intended to receive a second season. After the first set of episodes were a hit and won several Emmys, however, Moriarty agreed to write new stories that would specifically serve as the source material for Season 2.
Now, though, the “Big Little Lies” author says she’s “done” with further stories for the Monterey Five. But that doesn’t mean she’s ruled out other possibilities.
Speaking to Variety earlier this summer at the Season 2 premiere in New York City, Moriarty revealed, “The only thing I had sometimes thought, even before any of this had happened, was maybe jumping ahead to when the children are in high school — years ahead. So, that’s a possibility, but not for years to come. I feel like I would need a break, too, before I did that.”
A TV spinoff is might not see the light of day for a while, however, because Moriarty says her idea would be, at least initially, for a novel.
“That would be for me, for a book,” she explained, “Which maybe wouldn’t even have the same characters. Maybe I’m in the same town. But I don’t know. It’s just thoughts.”
While the high school kids spinoff appears far off (at best), Moriarty is plenty busy, in the meantime. Nicole Kidman nabbed the television rights to her novel “Nine Perfect Strangers,” which landed a straight-to-series order at Hulu. The show, which is expected to premiere in 2020, will serve as a “Big Little Lies” reunion, of sorts, with Kidman starring and executive producing alongside Bruna Papandrea and David E. Kelley.
As for the novella that inspired the second HBO season, Moriarty isn’t planning on publishing that material because, she says, the stories were written expressly for the show, so the content wouldn’t make sense as a novel. “I wrote it to follow on from the series, so I wrote it with an American accent,” she quipped. “The book is set in Australia. I changed some of the backstories of the characters from the book to suit the series…it would feel clunky. It wouldn’t work.”
In other words, don’t hold your breath for a “Big Little Lies” book series just yet. And don’t get your hopes up for more “Big Little Lies” on HBO, either.
Earlier this week at the Television Critics Association press tour, HBO president Casey Bloys teased, “Never say never,” but he confirmed that there are no plans on Season 3, at this point. “To me, there’s no obvious place to go, no obvious story,” Bloys said. “I would certainly be open to it because I love working with all of them.”
(Variety)
A slightly smaller update today than previously – the 2016 TV Appearances section of the Gallery has been updated. We already had photos from most of the appearances but there are a few additional photos & screencaptures, including from Reese’s interviews on Ellen & Jimmy Fallon. Reese did a bit of promotion for Draper James and Sing in 2016, but was relatively low profile compared to the previous few years!
Most available videos have already been posted – browse through our 2016 news archives to watch them, and find the clip from The Project below.
Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon on all things Big Little Lies season 2, possible season 3
The second season finale of Big Little Lies — and that epic court battle between Celeste (Nicole Kidman) and her mother-in-law Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) — had fans sitting on the edge of their seats.
Now, Kidman and fellow BLL star/executive producer Reese Witherspoon talk with EW exclusively about that ending, the reports that have surfaced that season 2 director Andrea Arnold supposedly lost creative control to season 1 director Jean-Marc Vallée, and whether fans will be able to enjoy another season of the women from Monterey, Calif.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was it like to get everyone back for another season?
REESE WITHERSPOON: The collaboration was otherworldly, particularly having Meryl joining the cast. And then having audiences respond the way they do and love these characters and take them into their homes and hearts. That’s a big deal. That’s lightning in a bottle. I think Nicole and I frequently text each other and say, “Can you believe this is happening?”NICOLE KIDMAN: Meryl in that cardigan, with those teeth and delivering that dialogue, I mean, that is such a unique character. I’ve never seen that on screen. That makes me happy. I’ve not seen that kind of strangely unique, woman-in-a-cardigan, wielding those verbal swords. It was sort of delicious. We’ve always said this show needs to be delicious. And hopefully it will still culturally penetrate. Obviously, so much of what we are grappling with is, “I believe you, I don’t believe you.” And to have a woman on the stand saying “I don’t believe you” with such vehemence to another woman, a momma to a momma, all of those things — for that to get lost is sad. We are trying to interweave all of these story lines, six women and their story lines, and having seven hours is still not really enough. We started to put our toe in the water with euthanasia; we started to deal with the cultural ideas of… once again there is a society that says “I don’t believe you; I believe you brought it upon yourself.” Those things are still very much in existence: “you caused someone to rape you,” “maybe you didn’t realize what you were doing,” “maybe actually it’s your fault that he wanted to hit you.” All of those things are very prevalent in this culture right now. To have them discussed and still in an entertaining way, and then to be dealing with the weight of a secret, how do you heal when you are still holding on to secrets? All of that is very complicated. Trying to deal with these complicated issues and have them still resonate with people in an entertaining way was something we were open for. Did we succeed or fail? Reese and I always say, “Hey, we are always going keep trying.”
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Following on from our previous 2014 TV appearance update, we have an even bigger one for you this weekend! Over 6,000 photos & screencaptures from Reese’s TV appearances in 2015 have been added to our Gallery in the last few weeks. Reese started off the year with a couple of appearances to promote Wild during awards season, then promoted Hot Pursuit, and within that did some promotion for Draper James. She and Sofia Vergara also did the rounds of various Mexican talk shows which was fun to watch.
We’ve also added a few sets of screencaptures from some online interviews released this year. The Fandango interview is particularly great – Reese and the interviewer watch a scene from Wild and talk through it in depth.
I loved Reese’s interviews this year and she looked amazing! There are so many fabulous photos to browse through in this update, including rare photos from the Mexican TV shows. My favourites are the Despierta America, Good Morning America and Live With Kelly & Michael photos 
Many of the interviews are posted further down this post for you to watch, and enjoy browsing through the screencaptures in the Gallery:
• Talk Shows from 2015
• Interviews from 2015
E! News have shared this fantastic old segment with the cast of Legally Blonde from back in 2001. Listen to Reese talking about the work she put into the role, and her co-stars singing her praises!
• E! News – Unknown 2001 x156
Big Little Lies: One of the Monterey Five Was Supposed To Die
CONTAINS BIG LITTLE LIES SEASON 2 FINALE SPOILERS!
Poorna Jagannathan is a veteran actor of stage and screen with a long CV that included a central role on HBO’s The Night Of. But when she got the call to appear in Big Little Lies, the actor was immediately overwhelmed by both absolute joy and enormous stress. As Katie Richmond, the lawyer originally hired to represent Celeste (Nicole Kidman), Jagannathan had a front-row seat to the prestige drama TV showdown of the century: Kidman vs. Meryl Streep.
“I would have taken this role no matter what,” Jagannathan said in an interview for the latest episode of Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast. But the chance to work with the most “elite cast in the world” was frosting on the cake. You can listen to Jagannathan’s full interview—including her revelation that in her version of the script, one of the main characters didn’t make it through to the end of the season—here.
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‘Big Little Lies’ Goes Out Large With Season 2 Finale Viewership
CONTAINS BIG LITTLE LIES SEASON 2 FINALE SPOILERS!
It was pure courtroom drama and David E. Kelley playing to his strengths for the Season 2 finale of Big Little Lies on Sunday – and viewers flocked to it in record numbers.
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The season 2 finale of Big Little Lies aired last night! It was a tense episode full of revelations and decisions. There were a couple of really nice scenes highlighting the friendship between Madeline & Celeste, but for us the highlight was again the Madeline & Ed scenes – although we won’t spoil it for those that haven’t seen the episode yet! Reese looked beautiful in her flower head-dress! Although this season was not on a par with season 1 for us, kudos goes to Reese for her incredible work as a producer on the show, and for her performance that just reminds us what a versatile and heartfelt actress she is. Seeing Reese spar with Meryl Streep on screen has certainly been a highlight of Reese’s career for us!
Just FYI, Big Little Lies was not eligible for the Emmys this year as it premiered after the May cut-off date the TV Academy have. It will be eligible for the Emmys this time next year in 2020, and the Golden Globes, SAGs etc. in 2019/2020.
A clip from this episode plus a behind the scenes look for the season from Hello Sunshine can be watched below. We have gorgeous HD screencaptures in our Gallery for you – remember that they obviously contain spoilers:
Season Two Finale. Celeste questions Mary Louise about a tragic event from Perry’s childhood; Madeline worries their lie is tearing the Monterey Five apart.
• 2×07: ‘I Want To Know’ x329
Big Little Lies (2019)
The Morning Show (2019)
