Morning Show executive producer Michael
Ellenberg. “You have to introduce an idea of
what America is that works for blue states
and red states.” It was Ellenberg who
brought the idea for The Morning Show to
Witherspoon, whom he worked with on Big
Little Lies, and Aniston in late 2016. (“I said
to him, ‘I’m not completely closed down to
television because it’s been pretty good,’ ”
Aniston recalls.) He can trace the idea back
to 1989, when he saw Jane Pauley get
replaced on Today. (It’s widely believed to
be because she was “too old.” She was 39 at
the time.) Then in 2012, Today’s veteran
newsreader Ann Curry was reportedly
driven off the program after less than a year
as a cohost, a subject explored in journalist
Brian Stelter’s 2013 book Top of the Morn-
ing, which Ellenberg quickly optioned.
(Stelter is a consulting producer on the
show, which uses his book mostly for back-
ground research.) “These are some of the
most powerful women in America, and we
watched them get screwed publicly, basi-
cally,” Ellenberg says. Witherspoon adds: “I was astounded
by how honest a lot of female anchors were with myself and Jen. I
think most people would find it shocking that women in that posi-
tion, of what we perceive as power, are looked at as expendable.”
With Aniston, 50, and Witherspoon, 43, on board to star and
executive-produce the series, it wasn’t hard to find The Morning
Show a home. By August 2017, they’d met with Apple. Did we
mention that Apple creates TV shows now? In March 2019, the
tech powerhouse announced it was entering the streaming
world. (Hey, all the cool kids are doing it!) Joining the relative
elders—Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video—as well as the
new class of streamers—HBO Max, Disney+, Facebook Watch,
Snap Originals, Quibi, and too many more to count—Apple is
launching Apple TV+, an app so shrouded in secrecy you’d think
it was the nuclear codes...or the next iPhone. For instance, the
details of the service will be announced by the time you read this,
but at press time Apple wouldn’t even confirm how much it will
cost. (But the Apple execs do have jokes, promising to reveal how
much it will cost if only a reporter would hand over her credit-
card info.) One thing that’s always been known is that The
Morning Show would be a part of Apple TV+’s initial slate of pro-
gramming. “It was day 2 or 3 of us being here at Apple when we
heard the pitch,” says Jamie Erlicht, who is head of worldwide
video for Apple alongside Zack Van Amburg. (Both came over
from Sony Pictures Television.) “It was so undeniable, both in
the story they wanted to tell and who was involved. We left the
meeting and we literally didn’t even know how to order paper
clips for the office—let alone a TV series—but we said we had to
have it.” Fifteen minutes later, they called to make an offer. And,
it seems, the enthusiasm was mutual. “The more ambitious this
project was, the more I felt like Apple was the right place for it,
because they were taking a shot too,” Witherspoon says. “They’re
putting themselves out there to get into the content world.” (It
also probably didn’t hurt that Apple agreed to pick up the series
for two 10-episode seasons before they’d filmed anything.)
But the show Apple was originally pitched isn’t exactly what
made it to the screen. “We started developing it in August, and by
November, the whole world had changed,” says Witherspoon. Spe-
cifically, #MeToo happened. On Oct. 5, 2017, The New York Times
published a piece in which Ashley Judd, among others, accused film
mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. On Oct. 15, Alyssa
Milano invited other women to speak out by tweeting “me too,” a
movement originated by Tarana Burke in 2006. And by the end of
November, accusations had come out about Kevin Spacey, Louis
C.K., and even Today’s Matt Lauer. On Nov. 29, NBC fired their
cohost of two decades following allegations of sexual misconduct.
“When #MeToo happened...it’s like, we can’t not address it,” Anis-
ton says, with Witherspoon adding, “I don’t think I’ve seen a time
in my life where more people have lost their entire careers over
misconduct. People who were seemingly untouchable. We had to
start totally over and redevelop the show, but it actually turned out
to be so much more potent and topical.” Part of that redevelopment
process involved a showrunner swap. In April 2018, Kerry Ehrin
replaced House of Cards’ Jay Carson, who’d previously been
attached to the project. “We realized that the story that was unfold-
ing was not the story we all wanted to tell,” says Erlicht. “So we↖ “I don’t know if they
ever fully trust each
other, but they learn
to love each other,”
Aniston says of the
dynamic between her
character Alex Levy
and Bradley Jackson
(Witherspoon)fall
tv pre
view
2019