Annapurna Television’s high-profile adaptation of Maria Semple’s bestselling novel Today Will Be Different, toplined and produced by Julia Roberts, has landed at HBO for development.
HBO has commissioned multiple scripts from the project, written by Semple. Today Will Be Different follows Eleanor Flood (Roberts), who wakes up determined to be her best self, but then life happens. Taking place over a single day, it’s described as a rollicking portrait of one woman’s fumbling but valiant attempt to navigate the knotty perils and sly grace of modern life.
Roberts will produce the series through her Red Om Films banner with Semple and Annapurna’s Megan Ellison and Sue Naegle.
This marks Roberts’ return to TV and to HBO following her starring role in the film The Normal Heart. Today Will Be Different also is a return to TV for Semple, who wrote for Arrested Development and Mad About You, and a return to HBO for the network’s former entertainment president Naegle.
HBO is coming off the success of another limited series based on a bestselling book and headlined and produced by A-list feature actresses, Big Little Lies, starring Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman.
Today Will Be Different was one of the the first big TV packages announced by Ellison’s Annapurna, which last fall signaled a foray into the small screen with the launch of Annapurna Television, headed by Neagle. The division also has in the works the adult animated series Amberville for Amazon and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Western anthology written and directed by the Coen brothers, among other projects in development.
