Blumhouse Partners with Jamie Lee Curtis and They Are Adapting a Dateline Crime Story
Blumhouse Productions has made a few big announcements recently. According to Deadline, they’ve partnered up with Jamie Lee Curtis and they have a first-look deal with her now. Then Variety reports that they’ve also partnered up with NBC News for a limited-series project where they will be adapting a Dateline story.
The Dateline project will focus on the show’s coverage of the murder of Betsy Faria in 2011, “a case in which her husband was originally sentenced, then freed as another suspect came to the fore.” That suspect was Pam Hupp, who was convicted in 2019 and believed to have orchestrated her death to pin it on Betsy’s husband.
The NBC News program has covered the case several times since 2014, and there was a podcast created for it as well titled, The Thing About Pam. There’s an announcement video for the scripted adaptation that you can watch below. Liz Cole, president of NBC News Studios and executive producer of Dateline, said in a statement:
“We have covered this story from all angles, including as an unwitting participant. Having been at the forefront of the true crime genre for so long, we know better than anyone that truth is often stranger than fiction, and with the twists and turns in this case, we saw a real opportunity to present it in a scripted format. We are so fortunate and pleased to be co-producing it with the brilliant storytellers at Blumhouse Television.”
Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold co-presidents Blumhouse Television, said in a statement:
“We’re not just looking for monsters under the bed, but also the things that keep us up at night so the chance to mine the incredibly rich trove of material from the Dateline archives to develop is a really unique and exciting opportunity for us. When we first came across The Thing About Pam, like thousands of others who’ve seen the Dateline episode and listened to the podcast, we were riveted. So when NBC presented this to us we jumped at making this our first scripted project with them.”
As for Jamie Lee Curtis’ three-year, first-look deal with Blumhouse for film and TV projects, that includes a horror project titled Mother Nature, on which Curtis will make her feature film directorial debut. She is also co-writing with Comet Head of Film and TV Development Russell Goldman. Curtis said in a statement:
“I’m 61 and my motto now is: ‘If not now, when, if not me, who?’ I’m excited to have a creative home to explore my own ideas and others. Jason and his team have made me feel welcome. Comet is ready to bring these stories to screen life.”
In addition to Mother Nature, Curtis stars in Blumhouse’s highly-anticipated Halloween Kills, which is slated to hit theaters on October 16th, as well as the third and reportedly final installment of the reboot series, Halloween Ends, which is currently set for an October 15, 2021 release.