'Feud' Reteams FX And Ryan Murphy For Tasty Hollywood Dish

'Feud' Reteams FX And Ryan Murphy For Tasty Hollywood Dish 'Feud' Reteams FX And Ryan Murphy For Tasty Hollywood Dish FX, a 20-year old cable network that has risen to prominence thanks to a canny mix of prestige fare (The Shield, Louie, Atlanta, The Americans) and commercial blockbusters (American Horror Story, Legion) and a potent lineup of theatrical movies, is rolling out its latest bid for buzz with the premiere of Feud. The eight-part series, premiering tonight, explores the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the making of the 1962 horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Susan Sarandon stars as Davis and Jessica Lange as Crawford. The starry cast also includes Alfred Molina, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci and Kiernan Shipka. As with the Emmy-winning, Zeitgeist-capturing The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, critics are largely on board with Feud. From the episodes I have seen, it seems certain to earn a spot as one of 2017's noteworthy shows, exploring a period and personalities with flash and wit but also a dramatic seriousness of purpose. The real star of the show, from both a creative and industry perspective, is behind the camera. That would be Ryan Murphy, the creator of FX and Fox hits from Nip/Tuck to Glee to People Vs. O.J. Not content with delving into Davis and Crawford's feud for eight hours in prime time, Murphy is doing as he did with the Horror and Crime franchises and turning Feud into an anthology. A followup installment about Prince Charles and Lady Diana has just been announced. The new entry in American Crime Story will focus on Hurricane Katrina, and Murphy raised eyebrows by saying the next Horror Story outing will be set during the 2016 presidential election. He later clarified that it wouldn't portray the campaign directly but use it as a "jumping-off point." A recent luncheon at New York's Rainbow Room for Feud featured a panel with Murphy, Sarandon, Lange, Zeta-Jones, Shipka and executive producer Tim Minear. The discussion showed that the showbiz zeal and indulgence in camp that usually mark a Murphy production, Feud has more serious things to say, especially about ageism and sexism in Hollywood. In addition to Davis and Crawford, Zeta-Jones portrays Olivia de Haviland and other actors play the men running the town (like Tucci's Jack Warner) with a pronounced blind spot toward women. "What was really interesting to explore," Murphy said, "was the idea of what a tragedy the last 15 years was in the lives of these women and how they deserved so much more." Zeta Jones said of de Haviland, who is now 100 and decided to abandon Hollywood and move to Europe as a statement, "She had some balls." Lange said the path of Crawford, who survived a nightmarish upbringing in Texas and became a determined steward of her own career, picking Baby Jane out of the slush pile when it was a novel and putting it into development as a film, offers lessons about how women are perceived as they age. That bias remains fairly widespread. "It is kind of a shattering experience to find that you're not wanted," Lange said. Davis also looms large in the story. As a boy in Indiana, Murphy wrote a fan letter to Davis and she acknowledged it. Eventually the two would meet in Los Angeles shortly before the actor's death in 1989. The connection with her “put me on a path because she was so unusual. She never bent to who people thought she should be. She was just who she was and, goddammit, she was proud of it. I thought ‘I want to live my life like that.’” FX Networks CEO John Landgraf said the series fits with FX's push to diversify not just casts but crews. The percentage of white male directors has gone from 88% to 48% in just the past year alone. Landgraf is fond of pointing out that the network passed on Breaking Bad, which became a huge hit for AMC Network, in favor of Damages, which was a breakthrough series because it starred Glenn Close in the lead role, a rarity on prime-time television at the time.