It appears the trend of big names in the film industry — your McConaugheys, your Spaceys, your Soderberghs/Owens — coming to television will keep rolling along, as Sony Pictures TV announced today that it will team up with Scarlett Johansson for an upcoming limited series based on an Edith Wharton novel. The series doesn’t have a home yet, but with Johansson attached to star and executive produce one would assume some cable network somewhere will throw enough money at this to make it a reality.
From Deadline:
Custom Of The Country is described as a scathing story of ambition featuring one of the most ruthless heroines in literature, Undine Spragg, who will be played by Johansson in her first major TV role. Undine is as unscrupulous as she is magnetically beautiful. Her rise to the top of New York’s high society from her nouveau riche roots provides a provocative and thoroughly modern commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin.
This sounds wonderful, and it’s always terrific when television ropes in a big name from the silver screen, but I just have one small note. It’s nothing, really. It’s just, I mean, Undine Spragg? That’s the name of the beautiful, devious character that will be played by Scarlett Johansson? That’s just not going to fly. We need pump some life in this sucker. My proposal: Change the name to Veronica Ferrari. And let’s set it in Miami Beach while we’re at it. In … in the future! And we change the title to The Veronica Ferrari Chronicles. And maybe now she’s a high-powered district attorney who is trying to balance her successful work life with her problematic love life. Why can’t Veronica Ferrari have it all???
Like I said. Nothing, really.
