Feud: Bette and Joan, a new Ryan Murphy series with Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford, has gotten a release date on FX.
Ryan Murphy is a man of particular tastes. He loves old Hollywood ghost stories, he adores horror, and he romanticizes diva-like displays of theatricality. So of course he’d have to eventually do something about Joan Crawford one of these days—and as it turns out with Bette Davis to boot! Yep, thus enter Feud, the new limited series from FX and Murphy that now has a release date.
As FX confirmed out of TCA, Feud: Bette and Joan will debut on Sunday, March 5 on the basic cable network. The series will also be packed like most Murphy projects with A-list talent, including frequent collaborator Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis. The limited series will also star Alfred Molina, Stanley Tucci, Judy Davis, Jackie Hoffman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Paulson, and Kathy Bates.
Set during the waning days of their careers, the series focuses on the filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? a psychological thriller/horror film about a former child actor (Davis) bedeviling her now-more famous sister (Crawford) after the latter becomes bedridden. The series will feature a different “legendary” fight between the two stars in each episode during this production.
For the record, Davis and Crawford had an infamous rivalry stemming from one being considered a more serious Oscar winning thespian (Davis) and the other being a more traditionally well-regarded sex symbol in the 1930s and early ‘40s (Crawford). This expanded into moments where their personal lives and romances intersected to ugly results, fueling a mutual disdain that culminated in a headline-grabbing collaboration that did not go very well on the set of this camp classic. Crawford’s reputation has also only lowered since her death following the tell-all her daughter wrote, Mommy Dearest.
There’s no doubt that Ryan Murphy will have a blast with all of this skullduggery. And if it works, there’s just as much likelihood that a new anthological series will be born.