I wrote about the tough and bright spots in Netflix’s latest viewership data dump and the industry debate over the streamer’s binge model, analyzed how Hollywood’s wave of M&A could change the Emmy landscape and interviewed AMC’s Dan McDermott. I’m lesley.goldberg@theankler.com
On its surface, the idea of the creator behind Fox’s hit 2010s comedy New Girl tackling a serial killer drama inspired by a 1980s Debra Winger movie sounds about as wacky as any storyline involving Nick, Jess, Schmidt and Winston. But Liz Meriwether’s career has become a case study in what can happen when Hollywood gives a successful creator enough trust to escape the genre that made her.
Meriwether, 44, has spent nearly 15 years in an overall with Fox-Disney, a relationship that has allowed her to take the kind of creative swings Hollywood rarely affords even its most successful writers. After seven seasons of New Girl and two more ABC comedies, Single Parents and Bless This Mess, the Yale grad left the punishing broadcast grind for stories that, as she puts it, “scare” her.
First came Hulu’s Elizabeth Holmes drama The Dropout, which earned Meriwether Emmy nominations for writing and best limited series and a win for star Amanda Seyfried. Then came FX’s Dying for Sex, the Michelle Williams-led dark comedy about trauma, illness and healing that again put Meriwether in the Emmy conversation.
Her biggest genre leap, though, is Furious, a drama starring and exec produced by Emmy Rossum (Shameless) that Meriwether was inspired to tell after watching 1987’s Black Widow, the Winger-starring neo-noir that was a modest box office success. Furious — whose title references the Furies, goddesses of vengeance in Greek mythology — counts Black Widow scribe Ronald Bass among its EPs. The series revolves around an FBI agent (Rossum) tracking a female serial killer (Lola Petticrew of FX’s Say Nothing) and explores the impact of violence against women. “I want to tell a different story about what it is to be a victim that makes room for messiness, makes room for a narrative that doesn’t make sense,” Meriwether tells me.
Furious, bowing July 27 with its first three episodes before shifting to a weekly rollout, is Meriwether’s first ongoing series since Bless This Mess was canceled in 2020. Meriwether, who shares three children with her husband, producer Alex Cuthbertson (Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock), is quick to acknowledge the lack of risk-taking and challenges in the comedy space, but still considers herself a comedy writer and tells me she’s ready to return to the genre (though don’t believe any recent chatter about a New Girl reunion).
But before that, there’s one other project involving a complicated protagonist on her plate: Universal Pictures’ Britney Spears biopic from director Jon M. Chu and producer Marc Platt. Adapted from Spears’ bestselling memoir, The Woman in Me (whose audiobook was memorably read by Williams), Meriwether was announced as the screenwriter on July 7, and she tells me why it’s a “dream job” for her.
From our sit-down:
- What drew her to Spears’ story, and why she connects with it
- How Meriwether moves between genres, and why comedy keeps calling to her even though it’s “very hard”
- What she learned about female serial killers that changed the direction of Furious
- Why she wants to challenge the trope of women as “perfect victims”
- Her lessons from Disney’s women, including tough leadership advice from Dana Walden
- What classic sitcoms pulled off that’s harder now
- Why she’s praying for pilots to continue their comeback, even if she won’t be making one herself anytime soon
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