Brie Larson is adding a second series at Apple to her workload.
The Captain Marvel actress is set to star in and executive produce Lessons in Chemistry. Apple’s TV+ platform has given a straight-to-series order to the project, which it landed in a highly competitive situation.
Larson is also attached to another Apple series, a CIA drama based on the experiences of real-life agency operative Amaryllis Fox. Apple gave that project a straight-to-series order back in 2019.
Lessons in Chemistry is based on an upcoming novel from author and science writer Bonnie Garmus. Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich, Netflix’s Unbelievable) is adapting the novel and will serve as showrunner.
The series is set in the early 1960s and centers on Elizabeth Zott (Larson), whose dreams of being a scientist are rebuffed by a society that still deems a woman’s place is in the home. When Elizabeth finds herself pregnant, alone and fired from her lab, she takes a job hosting a TV cooking show. She then sets out to teach a nation of overlooked housewives — and the men who are suddenly listening — more than recipes while craving a return to the lab.
Apple Studios is producing Lessons in Chemistry, adding to a slate of projects that also includes limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey and feature films Kitbag, Emancipation and Killers of the Flower Moon, among others.
Grant and Larson will executive produce with Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan of Aggregate Films.
The book deal was handled by Luke Speed and Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown. Larson is repped by WME, Authentic Talent, Rogers&CowanPMK and Sloane Offer. Aggregate Films is repped by CAA, Lighthouse Management & Media and Shelter PR.
