Shonda Rhimes's first slate of shows for Netflix includes a look at the migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South, romance among wealthy 19th century Londoners and a documentary on Debbie Allen's reimagining of "The Nutcracker."
The streaming service on Friday announced eight shows Rhimes and her collaborators at Shondaland are developing.
The show about African-American life will be based on Isabel Wilkerson's award-winning book "The Warmth of Other Sons," while the show about London aristocrats is based on Julia Quinn's best-selling romance novels set in Regency England.
Other projects include a show based on tech investor Ellen Pao's memoir, a series on California on the eve of the Mexican-American War, and a dark comedy about a troop of teenage girls who survive the apocalypse and want humanity to live by their Sunshine Scouts rules.
Pao in 2015 lost a high-profile sex discrimination lawsuit against Silicon Valley venture-capital firm where she had been a partner. Netflix said Pao's experiences "presaged the Time's Up movement."
Rhimes, the creator of hit shows such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal," signed a multiyear deal to produce Netflix shows last August.
No release dates were announced Friday.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More