SHARP OBJECTS at ATX: The Team Teases the HBO Adaptation

Author Gillian Flynn is no stranger to having her work adapted—GONE GIRL and DARK PLACES were made into a films—but HBO’s SHARP OBJECTS, based on her 2006 novel of the same name marks her first foray into television.

“I started writing it when I was a writer at EW,” Flynn said during a panel for the limited series at ATX. “I was [consuming] tons of movies and TV. And what I was really discovering was there was a lot of stories about men and violence, and men and rage, and how they handle that. But not much about how women did that, and women handle their anger…particularly at that time, there was a lot of chick flicks. Stories about women who shopped and their big crisis was can I find the right shoe? And get the right shoe and get the right man and get the right cosmopolitan…so I started writing it.”

SHARP OBJECTS follows Camille (Amy Adams), a reporter who reluctantly returns to her small hometown to investigate the deaths of young women. But as she tries to discover what’s going on—while clashing with law enforcement—she also copes with her troubled mother and fractured family life.

“Movies with complicated female leads, they don’t get the support. they don’t get the attention they deserve,” showrunner Marti Noxon—who has recently worked on GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO DIVORCE, DIETLAND, and UNREAL—said. “I’ve spent the last five or six years of my career taking difficult women projects—or making them up—and putting them on TV instead.”

“Gillian and I sat down early on; we were like sisters from another mister,” Noxon continued. “I like to write the first episode of anything I do so people know the intention of it and what the tone is. I had really struggled with the point of view because the book is so internal…Gillian and I, she was part of process of doing it.”

Adams, who is also an executive producer on the series, praised the team and her experience with the show. “There was such a comrade and such an understanding of what we were going to do,” she said. “I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to return to television.”

SHARP OBJECTS, Series Premiere, Sunday, July 8, 9/8c, HBO

RELATED:

SHARP OBJECTS: HBO Sets July Premiere for the Amy Adams-Led Limited Series
SHARP OBJECTS Teaser: Amy Adams Stars in the Adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Novel

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