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Meryl Streep will star in an adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’

The novel has been unsuccessfully adapted several times before.

By Joe Allen Sep 27, 2024 11:58 AM

Meryl Streep in Let Them All Talk — Warner Bros.

Hollywood has been trying to adapt Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections since the book was first published more than 20 years ago. Now, CBS Studios is giving it a shot, and with some big star-power attached. According to reporting in Indiewire, Meryl Streep will star in an adaptation of the 2001 novel, which Franzen himself is adapting for television. The show does not yet have a network or streamer attached, but with Streep in a central role, it likely will soon.

The Corrections tells the story of three generations of a dysfunctional family from the middle of the century up through one final Christmas that they are all trying to spend together. The novel’s depiction of the strife and conflict at the heart of the family has earned it plenty of praise in the years since it was released, and Hollywood has been working to adapt it ever since.

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The first attempt was a feature film that never got off the ground, and Marriage Story director also tried to adapt the novel for HBO with a cast that would have included Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans, and Greta Gerwig, among others. Baumbach got as far as actually filming part of a pilot, but that pilot was rejected, so the show never got off the ground.

Baumbach’s cast was certainly impressive, but he didn’t have any names as big as Streep. Given that star power and the fact that the author himself is adapting, it seems possible that this adaptation will actually get off the ground.

Joe Allen is a freelance writer at Digital Trends, where he covers Movies and TV. He frequently writes streaming… Read Full Bio

Do you know the myth of Napoleon (the pig…not the man)

Napoleon

One of the many times I watched The Gentlemen, I laughed at the scene where Matthew (Jeremy Strong) joked that it was illegal in France to name a pig Napoleon. Of course, there are ridiculous laws all over the place. Want a few? In Georgia, it is illegal to eat fried chicken with a fork. In Arkansas, it is against the law to say the name incorrectly. Which means Bill Clinton would have come after me for years of me saying “ARE-Kansas.” It is prohibited to sleep on top of a refrigerator in Pennsylvania. That means my cat is a thug in Penn. And one of my favorites: It is illegal for unmarried women to parachute on Sundays.

The point is that there are crazy laws all over the place that seem completely ridiculous, and there is almost always a story behind them. So, is the Napoleon pig law a real thing? Is it illegal to raise a swine and name it after the legendary French Emperor? Well, let’s dig in. Why? Because I am a nerd and I need company in the weeds.

Who does James Bond work for? And is MI6 real?

James Bond Specter double breasted

We have some news on the movement of the next James Bond. According to reports, we are looking at the final four (we know of three). Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Dunkirk), Callum Turner (Eternity, One Night Only), and Josh O’Connor (The Crown, Challengers) are all in the final running to portray the next 007. We also, allegedly, have a fourth, unannounced actor in the running. But of course we do. And since we have news and movement on the James Bond front, I started thinking about what the next movie will be about. That took me down a rabbit hole, and I landed on a question. What is MI6? James Bond’s employer is a shadowy government agency, like Jason Bourne’s Treadstone or Ethan Hunt’s Impossible Mission Force (IMF). But there is one major difference between them and the organization that signs 007’s paychecks.

His is real.

A toast to excellence: Don’t overthink lighting a cigar…but don’t underthink it either

Face, Head, Person

When I first decided I was ready to try cigars for the first time, I was ready to jump right in and sit back to enjoy the experience. Then, something crazy happened. I couldn’t light it. It seemed so simple. Flame, meet cigar. It really couldn’t be that complicated. But I ran into a slew of problems. The wrong kind of flame, canoeing, an uneven burn, and the damn thing kept going out, causing me to restart the embarrassing process. So I reached out to my friends over at La Aurora to find out what I was doing wrong.

That is when I found out from their own John Gaglio that these issues are very common and there is no reason to be embarrassed. Instead, don’t overthink lighting your cigar. And don’t underthink it. Instead, try to use the following tips and enjoy the experience without shame.