Netflix has sealed the deal on Ripley, a Showtime limited series based on Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley.
The series stars Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning, it follows Tom Ripley (Scott), a grifter who is hired by a wealthy businessman to travel to Italy to convince his vagabond son (Flynn) to return.
Matthew Belloni revealed that when Ripley’s fortunes began to deteriorate, Steve Zaillian and his producing partner Garrett Basch engaged WME — which, paradoxically, had arranged the show prior to the pandemic but had been sacked by Zaillian after the Writers Guild packaging dispute.
WME’s Ari Greenburg contacted Netflix’s Peter Friedlander, who happened to be in New York and accessible to attend the editing room, after Paramount executive Chris McCarthy informed Netflix’s Bela Bajaria that the series was in the works.
Friedlander decided to take over the eight-episode series and its $100 million-plus budget after seeing a few episodes, including roughly $10 million in post-production and effects work needed to be done.
Viewers will watch Ripley on Netflix than on Showtime.
