Annapurna to launch TV series about Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich (video)

 April 17, 2014 - 19:16 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Megan Ellison’s film production and finance company Annapurna Pictures (American Hustle) has set its first major TV project, a series focusing on the intersecting lives of Hollywood icons and rivals Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, Deadline said.

Written by Angela Robinson and Alex Kondracke (Hung), the project is set in the Golden Age of Hollywood and explores the relationships of the starlets with such notable figures as John Gilbert, Mercedes de Acosta, Tallulah Bankhead, Alla Nazimova, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant, and John Wayne, among others. (Below is the Hollywood Rivals TV documentary about Garbo and Dietrich’s relationship.)

Annapurna Pictures will finance or produce, with Ellison serving as executive producer. Just like the movies she takes on, telling the Garbo-Dietrich story has been a passion project for Ellison, who is paying Robinson and Kondracke to write it on spec.

Annapurna’s Stephen Feder will be the executive overseeing day-to-day development and production. Robinson is wrapping up an overall deal at HBO, as part of which she serves as an executive producer on True Blood and is directing a key episode from the vampire drama’s final season.