The most recent project is the network’s 500th movie, marking a milestone for a certain kind of true crime tale
Lifetime’s 500th original movie, ‘Murdaugh Murders: The Movie,’ stars Bill Pullman as Alex Murdaugh. PHOTO: A&E NETWORKS/LIFETIME
The strange and tragic details surrounding the killings of Alex Murdaugh’s wife and son had much of America riveted as his livestreamed trial unfolded earlier this year. Seven months after he was sentenced to two life sentences for murder, the case is hitting the next level of the pop-culture obsession cycle. It’s a Lifetime movie.
In this version, airing in two parts Saturday and Sunday nights, events unfold with dramatized facts and plenty of creative license. It’s got high-strung music and actor Bill Pullman as the South Carolina lawyer scamming money through his law practice and donning a blue poncho to commit double homicide.
But “Murdaugh Murders: The Movie” involves a plot twist. In the milestone 500th original movie from a network built around women protagonists, the lead character is a monstrous man.
“Murdaugh is an anomaly because it was so big,” says Tia Maggini, Lifetime’s senior vice president of scripted content, a 9-year veteran of the network. The story’s ingredients—sordidness behind a genteel facade, a media sensation that millions followed in real time—ticked the boxes for the network’s female audience.
In the sprawling business of true crime, the Lifetime movie is a subgenre unto itself, predating the woolly world of investigation-driven podcasts and TikToks by decades. The basic-cable network began making its own movies in 1990 with “Memories of a Murder,” about an amnesiac woman who wakes up in an unsettling marriage with flashes of someone trying to kill her.
In the cable industry’s gold rush for prestige that started in the 2000s, Lifetime was a player, scoring Emmy nods for movies ranging from “Coco Chanel” (nominee Shirley MacLaine) to “Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story” (Taraji P. Henson). Things shifted when Emmy categories for made-for-TV movies included more miniseries from such heavyweights as HBO,
“We reach for the stars but it’s hard to compete with Cate Blanchett in a limited series that cost 40 times our budget,” Maggini says.
Part one of ‘Murdaugh Murders’ recreates events leading up to the killings. PHOTO: A&E NETWORKS/LIFETIME
Like a Lifetime heroine, the cable-TV business is facing peril these days. Streaming, splintering audiences and consumer rebellion against the cable bundle have caused double-digit percentage drops in viewership for most networks. Lifetime has an average 361,000 total prime-time viewers so far this year, down 26% from the same period last year, according to Nielsen.
But the network’s specialty—pulpy tales of women going from “victim to victor”—has been a lifeline. Average viewership for Lifetime’s original movies has grown by 7% among the network’s target audience (women ages 25 to 64) in 2023 compared with last year at the same time. And the broader audience for Lifetime’s original movies has increased by 16%, to 776,000 total viewers.
“We know what our women want to come and see,” says Elaine Frontain Bryant, executive vice president and head of programming for Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network and A&E. The channels are part of A+E Networks, a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst.
Lifetime produces 40 to 50 original movies a year and also acquires finished movies to schedule at least one premiere a week. Its originals include holiday fare, juicy music biopics, unauthorized celebrity sagas and partnerships with famous women, including recent movies inspired by the relationship drama in Mary J. Blige’s songs.
But the Lifetime brand hangs on titles that trumpet their parallel domain in the news cycle: “Amish Stud: The Eli Weaver Story,” “Stolen Baby: The Murder of Heidi Broussard” and “Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story” are all part of the Ripped From the Headlines series this fall.
Some originals get discovered by a different audience on the aftermarket. “The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story”—produced by Elizabeth Smart, herself a kidnapping survivor and frequent Lifetime collaborator—became a hit on TikTok and platforms like
In the hunt for subjects for the Lifetime lens, many sensational stories miss the cut. “I probably get 15 emails before breakfast. ‘Oh, my God, have you seen this thing?’” says Maggini, who weighs ideas from in-house staff, pitches from outside producers and other sources.
“If it’s just terrible things that happen to terrible people, that’s not a Lifetime movie,” she adds. “Our audience is an empathetic one. They want to root for people. They want to connect and relate and say, ‘What if that was me?’ We want survival stories, empowerment stories.”
Bill Pullman had about 10 days to prepare for the role before stepping onto the film set in Canada. PHOTO: A&E NETWORKS/LIFETIME
Initially Murdaugh seemed an unlikely fit. But the fixation of news outlets and social-media gawkers had turned the case into a national spectacle. Streamers Netflix and Max had each released multipart documentaries.
The Lifetime team had been tracking the story since the investigation phase. On June 7, 2021, Murdaugh called 911 to report that his wife Maggie and son Paul had been shot at the family hunting estate in the coastal Lowcountry region of South Carolina. Ensuing months brought a cascade of accusations and criminal charges for the fourth-generation attorney, revealing financial scams, opioid addiction and an attempt to have himself killed in a roadside shooting. Murdaugh was indicted on charges of murder in July of 2022.
To develop a scripted take, Lifetime tapped Los Angeles-based Johnson Production Group, which has made close to 200 movies for the network, including recent “Amish Stud” and coming “Would You Kill For Me?”
Executive producer Stacy Mandelberg and screenwriter Michael Vickerman searched for a female entry point to the story. They tested the perspective of wife Maggie. They considered using a fictional female journalist. Instead they dove into Murdaugh’s double life.
Part one of “Murdaugh Murders” recreates events leading up to the killings. Vickerman submitted a draft for that script last February. Annotations for Lifetime’s lawyers delineated where the screenplay shifted between substantiated details and invented ones, including dialogue at the Murdaugh dinner table before the murders.
Part two of the movie recreates the investigation and happenings in court. Vickerman wrote and revised that script as the trial progressed, incorporating details from a production consultant attending the hearings.
In the past, Lifetime sometimes rushed to capitalize on a high-profile crime by initiating a movie shoot before the trial ended, as with 2013’s “Prosecuting Casey Anthony,” starring Rob Lowe. “Our risk tolerance is a little lower these days,” Maggini says. For quality control, “Now we’d rather get a conviction before we make a movie, but we can be mostly there.”
Lifetime gave “Murdaugh Murders” an official green light last March, shortly after the guilty verdict came in on the 2nd. The network’s standard hustle for timeliness was accelerated by looming strikes by Hollywood writers and actors.
Pullman signed on to star last May 22nd. He had about 10 days to prepare with the script, study police and courtroom videos and get his Southern accent in shape before stepping onto the film set in Canada. The actor wrapped his scenes by June 30, just before his guild was expected to go on strike.
The “Independence Day” star’s performance was key to grounding the story, Mandelberg says, “because how do you make that craziness understandable to the audience? Otherwise it could just feel like satire.”
With his hair colored strawberry blonde, Pullman’s Murdaugh swallows pills by the handful as the camera goes woozy. To his defense attorney, he drawls, “I’ve had my way with juries.” He gets teary on the stand as he denies killing his victims Maggie and Paul, calling them “Mags and PawPaw.”
With time-tested true crime devices, “Murdaugh Murders” straddles a familiar line for Lifetime. Says Maggini, “You’re trying to make the most entertaining movie about something horrific that happened to someone.”
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