Emmy Award-winning television producer, Ryan Murphy and production company Plan B are creating the second installment of their acclaimed FX anthology series, Feud. Subtitled Capote’s Women, the show’s sophomore season will star two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, who ruled New York society in the 1960s and ’70s, Deadline is reporting.
Fellow two-time Academy Award nominee Gus Van Sant has has also signed onto the project. He will direct all eight episodes of the upcoming season.
Tony and Pulitzer Prize-nominated scribe Jon Robin Baitz put Feud‘s high-profile second season together. He’s also set to write all eight episodes and serve as the season’s showrunner.
An adaptation of Laurence Leamer’s bestselling 2021 book, Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, the miniseries is set largely in the 1970s. It will end with the titular Truman Capote’s death in 1984.
The book chronicles the story of the famous author as he betrayed several of his female friends, whom he called his swans, by publishing a roman à clef short story called La Côte Basque 1965 in Esquire in 1975. The article was intended to be included as a chapter in the famed novelist’s infamous unfinished novel Answered Prayers, the followup to his blockbuster book, In Cold Blood.
After In Cold Blood was met with tremendous acclaim, Capote was celebrated amongst New York high society. He became close friends with the city’s top socialites, including Paley, the wife of CBS head Bill Paley; Pamela Churchill Harriman, the ex-wife of Randolph Churchill, the son of British prime minister Winston Churchill; Lee Radziwill, the sister of Jackie Kennedy; fashion icon Gloria Guinness; and actress-fashion designer C.Z. Guest.
La Côte Basque‘s characters were thinly disguised versions of Capote’s female confidants. The article exposed the women’s shocking secrets and scandals, including adultery and murder. Its publication destroyed Capote’s friendships with the women,as well as his reputation and social standing.
Murphy and his fellow producers are still in the casting process for the eponymous Capote in Feud‘s sophomore season. Besides Watts, other Oscar-nominated and winning actresses are being considered to star on Capote’s Women as the author’s Socialite Swans.
Baitz, Van Sant and Watts are also producing Feud: Capote’s Women with Murphy, Plan B’s Dede Gardner, Tim Minear and Alexis Martin Woodall. 20th Television is the studio behind the series’ second season, and will be producing it with Plan B Entertainment and Ryan Murphy Productions. Filming is slated to begin in New York this fall.
The first installment of Feud, which debuting in 2017, was created by Murphy, Jaffe Cohen and Michael Zam. It starred Academy Award winners Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon as the leads, rival Hollywood icons Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.
Feud: Bette and Joan garnered strong reviews and earned 18 Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series. Lange and Sarandon were both also nominated in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie category. The two performers are set to return to the series and serve as producers on the sophomore season.
At the time, there was an idea for that the second season of Feud would focus on the relationship between Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales. However, that idea never came to fruition.