‘Little Women’ First Look: Meet the New March Sisters

PBS’ Masterpiece, Britain’s BBC and Wolf Hall producer Playground have released the first image from their hotly anticipated new TV adaptation of Little Women.

Heidi Thomas, creator of BBC hit Call the Midwife, and director Vanessa Caswill (the BBC’s Thirteen) have teamed up on this new version of Louisa May Alcott’s classic tale of the March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy — as they pass from childhood to womanhood. Originally published in 1868, Little Women is set against the backdrop of the Civil War. With their father at war, the four girls learn to navigate love and loss with help from their mother, Marmee (Emily Watson).

The first image from the three-hour series shows the four siblings: Amy, played by Kathryn Newton (Big Little Lies); Meg, played by Willa Fitzgerald (Scream: The TV Series); Jo, played by newcomer Maya Hawke; and Beth, played by Annes Elwy (Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams).

Oscar-winner Angela Lansbury (Murder, She Wrote) plays the cantankerous Aunt March in the series and Harry Potter alum Michael Gambon takes on the role of the Marchs‘ benevolent neighbor Mr. Laurence.

Little Women will air on BBC One in the U.K. and on Masterpiece in the U.S..

There have been several big-screen and TV adaptations of Little Women over the years, including a 1949 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, a TV musical that debuted on CBS in 1958, a 1979 miniseries that starred Meredith Baxter and Eve Plumb, and a 1994 film starring Winona Ryder, Claire Danes and Kirsten Dunst. There also is a new Little Women film adaptation in the works, starring Lea Thompson as Marmee.

In 2015, The CW put into development a gritty, sci-fi take on the book that hailed from exec producer Michael Weatherly. That project, however, did not move forward.

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