J.J. Abrams Is Producing a Series Adaptation of UNTAMED Which Explores What Happens When We Stop Striving to Meet Expectations

Bad Robot managed to acquire the right to Glennon Doyle’s best-selling memoir Untamed, and they will develop it as a TV series with J.J. Abrams producing.

The book explores the “joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and start trusting the voice deep within us.” That certainly an interesting thing to think about, and I’m curious to see it explored in this new series.

Ben Stephenson will executive produce the series alongside Jessie Nelson and Doyle, who will also co-write the first episode. Bad Robot’s executive vice president of television, Rachel Rusch Rich, will co-executive produce. Stephenson and Rich said in a statement:

“We were incredibly moved by Glennon’s story of coming to live more honestly, bravely, and fully, embracing the messiness that comes along with change. Glennon’s own writing is sharp and funny and deeply felt, and we can think of no better partner to help bring her story to life than Jessie Nelson, whose work always has a profound and tender humanity, and we are thrilled to work with her again.”

Doyle went on to add:

“Untamed has sold over one million copies worldwide in fewer than 20 weeks and ignited a movement because women are in a collective moment of reckoning: We are looking at existing models of marriage, parenthood, religion, business, sexuality, and politics – and deciding that it’s time to let the old burn and imagine truer, more beautiful lives for ourselves, and a more equitable world for all of us. I can’t imagine a more important time or more perfect partners than Jessie Nelson and Bad Robot to help bring my story, our collective story, to television.”

Nelson concluded, saying:

“It’s rare to come upon a story that has at its center such a powerful, messy, honest, wholly original female character. So I am thrilled to be working with my partners Bad Robot, Warner Bros. and Glennon Doyle to tell her story — as it constantly reminds us that “being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong it’s hard because you’re doing it right. You can’t change the fact that life is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy.”

Here’s a description from the book to give you a more detailed understanding of the story it tells:

This is how you find yourself.

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves.

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.

Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.