Feud Season 2 Will Be Directed By Gus Van Sant, Naomi Watts To Star
Five years after its first season, the FX anthology series "Feud" is finally set to return. According to Variety, a second season of the show about famed fights of history will tell the story of author Truman Capote and socialite Barbara "Babe" Paley. Naomi Watts is set to star as Paley.
The show's Emmy-winning first season followed the infamous dispute between old Hollywood actresses Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon). Despite its success, though, "Feud" seemed to fall by the wayside during co-creator Ryan Murphy's busy production schedule, which also includes anthologies "American Horror Story" and "American Crime Story." But now, the show is set to return.
A glamorous, tragic estrangement
Murphy, who signed a five-year exclusive deal with Netflix in 2018, will reportedly not be involved as showrunner in the new season. Instead, Pulitzer finalist and "Stonewall" writer Jon Robin Baitz will take on the showrunner role while also penning the eight-episode season. "Milk" and "My Own Private Idaho" filmmaker Gus Van Sant will direct the season.
The second season of "Feud" will draw from the book "Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era" by Laurence Leamer. Capote, the openly gay writer who modernized the true crime genre with his book "In Cold Blood," famously maintained several friends in elite circles until his tell-all manuscript threatened to tear apart his closest relationships. Born into money, Paley was an influential fashionista and one-time editor of Vogue.
All public accounts indicate the pair had lives that included more than their fair share of tragedy, making them a great fit for this series. The pair's relationship soured dramatically when Capote started working on a thinly veiled novel called "Answered Prayers," which he did not finish after his friends began to condemn him over individually published chapters. In 1976, New York Magazine columnist Liz Smith called his gossipy work "the nastiest story in the world."
A version of "Feud" season two covering the tumultuous marriage and divorce of Princess Diana and Charles, Prince of Wales was originally planned but was eventually scrapped. This certainly seems like the best call, as the Diana story has been told at length recently in titles like "The Crown" and "Spencer." The Capote-Paley story has all the trappings of the type of story Murphy and his team have always told best: found family, queer identity, and the ever-turning wheel of fortune.
"Feud" season two will air on FX, with a due date as yet unannounced.