By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --"Friends" star Jennifer Aniston is coming back to television and she's partnering with Reese Witherspoon.
The Apple streaming service said Wednesday the actresses will star in and produce a behind-the-scenes drama series about a TV morning show.
Aniston came to fame as Rachel on the hit NBC comedy "Friends," which aired from 1994 to 2004. She then focused on films, including "Office Space," ''Bruce Almighty" and "Marley & Me."
The Oscar-winning Witherspoon ("Walk the Line") made a TV splash last season with HBO's Emmy-winning series "Big Little Lies," which she starred in and produced with Nicole Kidman.
The new series marks a TV reunion for its stars: Witherspoon and Aniston played sisters on an episode of "Friends."
Landing the buzzed-about project represents a coup for Apple, which said it's ordered two seasons but didn't announce the show's title, release date or whether the shows will be distributed on iTunes or a different platform.
The series was described by Apple as "an inside look at the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning, exploring the unique challenges faced by the women (and men) who carry out this daily televised ritual."
It will draw on "Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV" by Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent. The 2013 book relates the rivalry between NBC's "Today" and ABC's "Good Morning America."
Stelter is a consultant on the drama, and Jay Carson ("House of Cards") is writing the pilot and is an executive producer along with Witherspoon and Aniston.
The show and Steven Spielberg's reboot of his "Amazing Stories" 1980s anthology series are the first two original dramas ordered by Apple and follow the hiring earlier this year of Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht to oversee video content.
Juliette Welfling Takes On A Musical, A Crime Thriller, Comedy and Drama In “Emelia Pérez”
Editor Juliette Welfling has a track record of close-knit, heartfelt collaboration with writer-director Jacques Audiard, a four-time BAFTA Award nominee for Best Film not in the English Language--starting with The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2006, then A Prophet in 2010, Rust and Bone in 2013, and Dheepan in 2017. He won for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet.
Welfling cut three of those features: A Prophet, Rust and Bone, and Dheepan. And that shared filmography has since grown to most recently include Emelia Pérez, the Oscar buzz-worthy film from Netflix. Welfling herself is not stranger to Academy Award banter. In fact, she earned a Best Achievement in Film Editing Oscar nomination in 2008 for director Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Emelia Pérez is a hybrid musical/drama/thriller which introduces us to a talented but undervalued lawyer named Rita (portrayed by Zoe Saldana) who receives a lucrative offer out of the blue from a feared drug cartel boss who’s looking to retire from his sordid business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamt of being (Karla Sofía Gascón in a dual role as Manitas Del Monte/Emilia Pérez). Rita helps pull this off, orchestrating the faked death of Del Monte who leaves behind a widow (Jessi, played by Selena Gomez) and kids. While living comfortably and contently in her/their new identity, Pérez misses the children. Pérez once again enlists Rita--this time to return to family life, reuniting with the kids by pretending to be their aunt, the sister of Del Monte. Now as an aunt, Pérez winds up adopting a more altruistic bent professionally,... Read More