Five years after its last airing, FX began work on a second season of the anthology series Feud. Created by Ryan Murphy, the second season of the series, starring two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts, directed by Gus Van Sant, and written by Jon Robin Baitz as showrunner, put together a strong team.
The second season will be called Capote’s Women and is based on Laurence Leamer’s book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era.
Feud: Bette and Joan aired in March – April 2017 and chronicled the rivalry between Hollywood icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of the 1962 camp classic film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. A second season would chronicle the end of the marriage between Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana, but that idea was later shelved. FX executives have since said they’re open to doing more than anthology, but they’ve waited a long time for the right material. Murphy’s overall deal to move from 20th Television to Netflix in 2018 put the show on the back burner.
Capote’s Women is set in the 1970s and tells the story of the author’s bitter fall with a number of New York high society women, including Barbara “Babe” Paley, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy’s sister) Slim Hayward. . Struggling with writer’s block following the release of In Cold Blood, Capote embarked on writing a novel called Prayers Answered. He eventually published a piece called “La Côte Basque 1965” in Esquire. Very thinly veiled fiction has spawned a series of scandals among the women’s circle.
Watts will play Paley, the wife of then-CBS president Bill Paley, and will serve as executive producer on the series. The search continues for the cast to play Capote and other women, Disney and Plan B produce Feud. Murphy will be one of the executive producers and will be involved with Gus Van Sant on the project. It’s possible that both names are directing the episodes.
