A Good Wife spinoff seems to be more than simply speculation.
Though the deals are not yet done, the spinoff will center on Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) and newer addition Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo). Creators Robert and Michelle King are in final negotiations to co-write the first episode but will not run the CBS TV Studios-produced series. The entry is expected to garner a straight-to-series order.
What is perhaps most interesting about the drama franchise’s next iteration is that it’s being conceived not for CBS but rather for CBS’ $5.99-per-month All Access digital subscription service. Assuming a series order is announced at CBS’ May 18 upfront presentation, which is expected, it would mark the SVOD service’s second high-profile order following the November 2015 news of an original Star Trek series.
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The latter is slated to premiere on CBS in January 2017, before moving to its more permanent home on All Access. The scale and ambition for the sci-fi SVOD series became that much more apparent in February with CBS’ announcement that Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) would be put at the creative helm with Alex Kurtzman attached as an executive producer. If a success, it could be do for All Access what House of Cards did for Netflix.
“All Access is very important,” CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves said during an earnings call late last year, adding of the company’s newer, future-leaning revenue stream: “[It] will put out original content and knowing the loyalty of Star Trek fans, this will boost it. … There’s about a billion channels out there and because of Star Trek, people will know what All Access is about.”
To be sure, the Good Wife writing staff left the door wide open for more stories to be told in the series’ May 8 finale. The show concluded with Lockhart slapping Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), which seemingly put an end to their plans for an all-female firm, Lockhart, Florrick & Associates. The finale also put into doubt the future of Diane’s marriage to Kurt McVeigh, played by Veep series regular Gary Cole, after questions arose about his alleged infidelity. When The Good Wife concluded, Diane and Lucca, who joined the series in season seven, were working for the same firm.
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When asked in April about a spinoff, Baranski said only that she hoped to be involved in whatever the Kings do next. “I always thought they understood me as an actress and they wrote beautifully for actors and they wrote women very well,” she said. “So, of course I would hope to cross paths with them again.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s television critic Dan Fienberg praised Baranski’s performance in the series finale, noting that she had become “the unironic and unambiguous good wife” whose “walking determinedly out of the courtroom was a spectacular guarantee of another Emmy nod.” Or perhaps better yet, a spinoff.
