The Hollywood industry already knows that Reese Witherspoon is much more than an Oscar-winning actress and legally blonde. Her journey as a producer is already history since in 2012 she embarked on the adaptation of the novels Alma Salvaje by Cheryl Strayed and Lost by Gillian Flynn: fed up with the fact that stimulating roles were not created for actresses, she decided to produce them herself. But, after building a prestige both in film and on television thanks to these films or the series Big little lies and The morning show, now it is at the top: it is possible that, if you looked at the credits, one of the last series that you have seen has been created by her.
In the last twelve months, Witherspoon has premiered four medium-high profile series as an executive producer from her production company Hello Sunshine. His specialty of hers? The Walk the Line actress has an unerring nose (and team) for spotting which novels have ideal storylines for adaptation, and then creating a team befitting the nature of the work.
In October, for example, he premiered the romantic drama Desde cero with Zoë Saldaña, based on the novel by Tombi Locke, who told his love story with a Sicilian chef in a relationship affected by cancer. It became a word-of-mouth success on Netflix for its ability to make its audience get up from the sofa to go for tissues in the process of tear dehydration.
In March, Everybody Loves Daisy Jones added to his streak. This musical drama that takes Taylor Jenkins Reid's best-seller as a reference stood out on Amazon Prime Video with a story set in the seventies: Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin), a musician who hasn't quite succeeded, has no choice but to unite creative forces with Daisy Jones (Riley Keough), whom he loathes but with whom he composes magic. Instagrammable wardrobe, the charisma of Keough, who is a granddaughter of Elvis, and Camila Morrone, and music that harkens back to the iconic decade of Fleetwood Mac made for a strong adaptation.
This April, two more releases. The first, Tiny beautiful things, where she repeats the experience of adapting a non-fiction novel by Cheryl Strayed after Wild Soul, a film for which she was nominated for an Oscar as an actress. This time the protagonist is Kathryn Hahn, a woman lost in life who begins to reflect on her existence and on the death of her mother when she is offered to write a column to give anonymous advice to readers with existential doubts. An auteur dramedy that seems designed to seduce critics and, hopefully, win prizes for Hahn.
And, finally, this Friday he premiered The Last Thing He Told Me, a miniseries where Laura Dave adapts her own novel with the help of Josh Singer in the spirit of a thriller with a feminine look: Hannah (Jennifer Garner) must join forces with Bailey (Angourie Rice ) the stepdaughter with whom she does not get along, after her husband disappears without a trace when his company is raided by the FBI.
Attention: the way in which Hannah tries to discover the whereabouts of her husband is a vice. The thriller formula is basic: memories that are resignified after the enigmatic escape, close friends who opportunely have the right job to get involved in the case and semi-memories about to hatch in a new path to the truth.
The key to Lo última que me dijo, however, lies in the length of the episodes (there are some that last less than 40 minutes!), the self-awareness of the proposal, and the humanity of Jennifer Garner, who has always been her best asset since he became a TV star with Alias.
These television releases, moreover, are not the only productions of Witherspoon and his Hello Sunshine. In July she turned the small screen critics against with another thriller with a female perspective, Appearances with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, with whom she had worked in The Morning Show opposite Jennifer Aniston and herself in the lead roles. ; but that month she also had a hit in movie theaters, The Wild Girl with the English Daisy Edgar-Jones at the helm of the adaptation of the novel by Delia Owens. 140 million dollars in revenue for a production that had cost 24 million.
After working with Amazon on a textbook romantic comedy for thematic movie addicts, Something from Tiffany's, the screen translation of Melissa Hill's book, she reserved a rom-com for herself: Your House or Mine on Netflix where he entered into a long-distance friendship with Ashton Kutcher. Almost 135 million hours viewed by subscribers to the platform in the first four weeks.
And in January 2023? The third season of Truth be told on Apple TV, the series with Octavia Spencer that positions Witherspoon as one of the key producers on the female-led thriller. This time, Poppy was investigating the disappearance of black girls in Oakland on her podcast at the same time that she is trying to track down the teenage daughter of an old friend. She is based on the character created by Kathleen Barber.
In short, Reese Witherspoon not only turned her passion for reading into a tool to launch projects with powerful female characters for herself, but she has carved out a parallel career as a producer. Hollywood actresses know that if she offers them a part, it means that it will have substance and that they will be able to shine in her performances.
This very legal blonde, who maintains a good relationship with all content platforms (and who has a third part of the cult legal comedy running), makes an extraordinary financial return on her adventure: in August 2021 she sold Hello Sunshine to investment group Blackstone Group for 900 million dollars.
