EXCLUSIVE: Melanie Marnich is a huge fan of Big Little Lies scribe Liane Moriarty‘s work, but when showrunning an adaptation of Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall, Marnich blocked the HBO hit from her consciousness almost entirely.
Peacock‘s Apples Never Fall, which stars 2024 Oscar-nominee Annette Bening and launches tomorrow with international premiere at next week’s Series Mania, was made with a Big Little Lies-free lens, Marnich explained to Deadline. “I admire Big Little Lies and think it’s brilliant but I had to literally put it out my mind,” she said in the days leading up to the Lille market. “I knew I had to quite quickly ignore all [Moriarty’s past work] and ask what this book wants to be and what the best way is to honor it.
How do I ignore all that came before to find the best voice and vision for this translation?” Exec produced by the storied David Heyman along with Moriarty, Apples Never Fall stars Bening as Joy Delaney, a matriarch former tennis coach married to the irritable Stan (Sam Neill), who suddenly goes missing, leaving her four children to piece together everything they thought they knew about their parents.
Show also stars Alison Brie, White Lotus’ Jake Lacy, Georgia Flood and Conor Merrigan Turner and is potentially the most high profile in competition at Series Mania, alongside the likes of MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine and Leonard Cohen series So Long, Marianne.
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