{"id":136620,"date":"2025-09-11T17:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/136620\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T17:25:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:25:06","slug":"francesca-sloane-set-as-writer-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/136620\/","title":{"rendered":"Francesca Sloane Set As Writer (Exclusive)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: The long awaited third season of HBO<\/a>\u2018s star-studded series Big Little Lies<\/a> has taken a major step forward with the hire of Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-creator, executive producer and showrunner Francesca Sloane<\/a> to write the first episode of Season 3, currently in development at the premium network, Deadline has learned. She will executive produce the new installment with series creator David. E. Kelley and stars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman. It falls under an exclusive two-year overall deal Sloane has signed with HBO.<\/p>\n

\n\tSloane is moving to HBO from Amazon MGM Studios where she had been under overall deals since 2020 and co-created with Donald Glover the breakout drama series Mr. & Mrs. Smith. She has served as executive producer and showrunner on the series, whose previously greenlighted<\/a> second season has been delayed indefinitely<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe writer hire signals a likely double dose of good news for Big Little Lies fans. Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content, said last fall<\/a> that he and his team were waiting for Liane Moriarty\u2019s sequel book before moving forward with a third season of the hit thriller.<\/p>\n

\n\tMoriarty\u2019s followup to her 2014 Big Little Lies novel, on which the Emmy-winning first season of the HBO series was based, is believed to be finished and will be published in 2026. She has revealed that it features a time jump with the women at the center of the story now moms of teenagers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal with Sloane caps an extensive search HBO launched this summer for a Big Little Liars Season 3 writer. It resulted in a bake-off among a half dozen established writers\/writing teams.<\/p>\n

\n\tSloane is not believed to have been part of that process. She had been set to return as showrunner for Season 2 of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and has spoken out about her love and commitment to the series. But with her latest Amazon MGM Studios deal coming to an end as Mr. & Mrs. Smith\u2019s second season was put on an indefinite hold over what I hear were cast issues<\/a>, Sloane and the studio engaged in lengthy conversations about what her new pact would look like, sources said.<\/p>\n

\n\tMost overall deals these days are tied to a show, and with the one Sloane has been attached to at Amazon MGM Studios in limbo, the proposed financial terms are said to have been below her previous pact. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs a result, she opted to explore the marketplace, fielding a lot of interest, including from HBO for Big Little Lies, which led to her overall deal at the network.<\/p>\n

\n\tBig Little Lies was a critical and ratings hit when it launched in 2017 as a limited series. A second season, based on original material, followed in 2019, with Kelley as writer\/executive producer of both installments.<\/p>\n

\n\tNews of BLL getting a third season first began percolating when Kidman let it slip in November 2023<\/a> that a continuation of the seaside-set crime drama was starting to come together at HBO. A couple of months prior, fellow BLL executive producer Bruna Papandrea told Deadline that there was an effort to continue the story but the sudden 2021 death of Big Little Lies executive producer\/Season 1 director Jean-Marc Vall\u00e9e was \u201ca devastating blow\u201d to everyone involved that left \u201ca big hole\u201d and \u201cmade us all pause.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBLL stars Witherspoon, Kidman, Zo\u00eb Kravitz, Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley who all had spoken publicly about their desire to return for a third season, along with Kelley<\/a>. The cast of the series also includes Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd, Adam Scott, James Tupper, Jeffrey Nordling as well as Meryl Streep in Season 2. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe first season, about five Monterey, CA women embroiled in a homicide investigation, won 8 Emmy Awards out of 16 nominations, including\u00a0Outstanding Limited Series, a\u00a0directing\u00a0award for Vall\u00e9e and acting trophies for Kidman, Skarsg\u00e5rd, and Dern.<\/p>\n

\n\tSloane and Glover shared in two Emmy nominations \u2014 Outstanding Drama Series and Writing for a Drama Series \u2014 and three WGA Award nominations for Season 1 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which earned a total of 16 Emmy noms, winning two categories, including Guest Actress In A Drama Series for Michaela Coel. <\/p>\n

\n\tShe previously worked on Glover\u2019s FX\u2019s Atlanta, Fargo and The First. Sloane began her career on the staff of Veena Sud\u2019s Seven Seconds and Startup. She is repped by WME, Sugar23 and Yorn Levine Barnes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: The long awaited third season of HBO\u2018s star-studded series Big Little Lies has taken a major step…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74175,49,48,75,74176,5862],"class_list":["post-136620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-big-little-lies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-francesca-sloane","tag-hbo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}