While her upcoming AppleTV+ movie “On The Rocks” has yet to be given a proper release date, filmmaker Sofia Coppola is clearly enjoying her relationship with the new streaming giant. Apple TV+ has announced that Coppola will be making her first move into television with an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel “The Custom of the Country.”
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Coppola will write and direct the limited series should it get picked up. First published in 1913, the novel tells of the story of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern girl who attempts to ascend in New York City society. “Undine Spragg is my favorite literary anti-heroine and I’m excited to bring her to the screen for the first time,” Coppola said in a statement.
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Coppola is likely putting the finishing touches on “On The Rocks” which stars Bill Murray and Rashida Jones and follows a young mother (Jones) who reconnects with her larger than life playboy father (Murray) on an adventure through New York. The film was expected to appear this year on the Apple TV+ streaming service, but it’s unclear how much the COVID-19 pandemic has affected its release or editing schedule.
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Coppola has ventured into TV before somewhat, having already directed the Netflix holiday special “A Very Murray Christmas.” She has also directed commercials for brands like Christian Dior and Gap.
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Here’s a more in-depth synopsis of the novel, but essentially, it’s also a book about divorce and Wharton explores with satire and wisdom divorce as a distinctly American custom on the eve of the twentieth century.
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First published in 1913, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country is a scathing novel of ambition featuring one of the most ruthless heroines in literature. Undine Spragg is as unscrupulous as she is magnetically beautiful. Her rise to the top of New York’s high society from the nouveau riche provides a provocative commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin. One of Wharton’s most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a stunning indictment of materialism and misplaced values that is as powerful today for its astute observations about greed and power as when it was written nearly a century ago.
No word on when it will air if it gets picked up, but likely late 2021 at the very earliest given how the pandemic has shifted everything back several months.
