Jean-Marc Vallee To Direct HBO’s ‘Big Little Lies’ Starring Nicole Kidman And Reese Witherspoon

Update 12/17: Variety confirms Jean-Marc Vallee will direct the entire series.

Original Story 10/23: If there is one filmmaker who in recent times has emerged as an actor’s favorite, it’s Jean-Marc Vallee. After directing both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto to Oscar-winning performances in "Dallas Buyers Club," he teamed up with Reese Witherspoon and scored her an Oscar nomination for "Wild," along with Laura Dern. The director followed that up with "Demolition" starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts, and while that film wasn’t warmly received at TIFF when it premiered last month, it hardly matters. The performances didn’t suffer, and Vallee is once again in demand.

Deadline reports that he’s in talks to direct "Big Little Lies," which would reunite him with Witherspoon, while Nicole Kidman will take the other lead role. Not too shabby. Set up at HBO, the project is a limited series adaptation of the novel by Liane Moriarty about three women whose lives intersect and unravel in a big way. Here’s the book synopsis:

A murder…A tragic accident…Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

David E. Kelley ("Boston Legal," "Boston Public," "Picket Fences") penned the scripts, and the project has a straight-to-series order. Vallee will direct the first episode, and maybe more, with production to start in early 2016.