Ryan Murphy said he knew he wanted to fit in Watchmen After reading the true story of the suburban nightmare) article in New York Magazine’s The Cut.
“I immediately thought of my own family and I think the idea that everyone in a world we live in right now, I guess, seems to be attacked in some way And that kind of thinking, “How do I keep my family safe? “It was something I was instantly inspired by,” says co-creator of the psychodrama starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale . “I wrote it on a note card and then put it on my computer while we were writing the script.”
in Netflix Murphy, who has an overall production deal, said after reading the article that he knew it was his next project and made a call, but the rights had been sold. “It’s been sold to someone at Netflix. I’m gone, ‘What? “So it sold fast. So I found out it was my friend Eric [Newman].”
Newman, who also has an overall deal with the streamer, and is Watchmen , then got a call from Murphy. “I said, ‘I love this work so much, I love the genre so much, so I’m going to write this for free; let me write it. He said okay. That’s how I got involved,'” Murphy said. “I’m involved as a fan just because I love the story so much and I’m deeply connected to it. It’s personal and I think it’s also from Ian Brennan, who I co-created with Personal.”
Murphy shared the show’s origin story with The Watcher in a pre-recorded couch chat starring women: Naomi Watts, Jennifer Coolidge, Mia Farrow, Norma Dumezwini and Margot Martindale. The dialogue produced by the streamer (below) was filmed before October of the horror thriller 10 released on the heels of Murphy and Brennan’s last Netflix True Crime Limited Series, Dahmer – Monsters: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story .
Both Watcher and Dahmer have since become Netflix hits, the latter having 3. billion minutes watched in the premiere week and entered as one of biggest title since Nielsen started tracking streaming viewing. The limited series also sparked ethics around the true crime genre and the glorification of serial killers, following Family Backlash by Jeffrey Dahl Victims of Jeffrey Dahmer have publicly stated that they had not been counseled about the series and had been re-traumatized.
While talking to his co-stars, Murphy and his lead women noticed a high level of interest in the true crime genre, especially women, as well as fear and collective experience How to handle it to bring the audience together. It was his own obsessive nature that attracted the creators of American Horror Story , which also just released
“I only make what I want to see. I have very strict rules about it, and I always have,” said the prolific producer. “And I’ve always thought that the more specific something is, the more general it is. I don’t know if it’s one of the secrets of my career, if it’s if I become obsessed with things.”
He continued, “When I did Dahmer , which I did before this, we worked on it for 3.5 years, and it It’s fun for me. [The Watcher] is a very common theme for me, which is parenting – I have three kids – you work so Think hard and you get the American dream; what if someone takes it away?”
Noma Dumezweni as Investigator Theodora Birch and Naomi Watts as Nora Brannock in The Watcher. Courtesy of Eric Liebowitz/Netflix
AS ISDetailinClipin730, Derek and Maria Broaddus (by Cannavale and in the series Watt) was the new owner of a six-bedroom home on the idyllic suburban Boulevard in Westfield, NJ, when they started receiving anonymous letters from people calling themselves “watchmen.” The letters, some of which are recreated in the series, include specific and threatening details about the family. Clip Writer Reeves Widman Detailed This caused emotional and psychological distress to the family over time, as neither the local police nor the family’s own investigations uncovered the identity of the watchman.
When Broadduses sued the previous owner, the story eventually went viral, and after the article was published, Wiedeman said there were a number of offers to choose the story. “A horror film producer offered to buy 657 Avenue, want to use the house as a collection,” Wiedeman in a recent In a follow-up article , he explained that after Lifetime made a movie without their family’s permission, they decided to sell their story to Netflix to keep “a little bit of control” “. They had two production requests approved: the show’s name change (Watts and Cannavale as parents of the Brannock family) and the Watcher family to look as close to theirs as possible.
The case remains unsolved to this day, and Watchmen spends its seven episodes spawning for each character Doubt. The series claims to be based on a true story in the opening credits, but most of the cast premiered while talking to the Hollywood Reporter on the show, said the show was seriously fictitious .
Murphy – who said he wrote every part with actresses in mind, and they agreed before even reading the script – said investigating during filming Still a work in progress, causing him to fall into a “wormhole” and even put him on the receiving end of the tip. “When we filmed it, there would be messages on Reddit like, ‘Here’s a new suspect, here’s another idea. Here’s another thing,'” he said. “It’s like doing something alive and we keep adding characters.”
Their shooting style is script by script, so the actors don’t know that either. The end of the mysterious man. “We’d get the prompt, ‘Here’s another suspect.’ I’d get an anonymous email: ‘Don’t forget about this suspect.’ “And then I’d follow this guy’s wormhole,” Murphy said. “Of course…some identities have changed, just like a person.”
1235244614 Mia Farrow as Neighbor Pearl Winslow in The Watcher. (Background: Terry Kinney as Jasper Winslow) by Eric Liebowitz / Netflix
The Watcher marks Murphy and Coolidge (Nip/Tuck) and Martindale ( American Crime Story: Impeachment ), while Watts will appear in his upcoming Feud in the second season. But this is the first time Murphy has booked a role for Farrow, who had been recommended to her American Horror Story pilot more than a decade ago, but she declined . In their conversation, all the women thanked Murphy for writing so many meaty characters for women .
“When I wrote American Horror Story , I wrote a part for you and begged your agent to give it to you, and they were like, ‘Oh , Mia doesn’t want to start working now,'” he recalls of a time when Farrow wasn’t performing. “I’m really sorry I didn’t do that,” Farrow replied, adding that she’d only seen her own horror classic Rosemary’s Baby once . “I regret not doing this.”
Coolidge also had a relationship with Murphy during AHS Going for a spin together, it was a season of filming at her house at the time. She said she tried to find a role when “Jessica Lange was upstairs in my bedroom” but Murphy never took it. Perhaps to correct this, he came up with an idea for the end chat of The Watcher’s Season 2: “The Further Adventures of Karen Calhoun, Taking Over Darren Deng Well (Darren Dunn) agency,” he said of the White Lotus star’s role as he ended the season on a high note. looking at 25-minute conversation, below.
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