HBO’s game-changing series, Big Little Lies, has rewritten the rulebook on book-to-TV adaptations. Co-produced by Reese Witherspoon’s company Hello Sunshine, Big Little Lies is a thriller masterpiece starring Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and an all-star cast. It centers on mothers in an affluent beach community whose lives unravel after a schoolyard bullying incident, all leading to a shocking murder.
If this sounds like a familiar premise, that’s because myriad shows tried to be the next Big Little Lies. The HBO series premiered in 2017, when the Golden Age of Television was still going strong, and it proved that prestige TV, which had been almost entirely male-dominated, could focus on the female experience and still be wildly successful. For that, Big Little Lies owes a lot to its literary source material, but the show deserves credit for doing things its own way.
Big Little Lies Went Past Its Source Material In Season 2
Reese Witherspoon’s beloved series is based on Liane Moriarty’s bestselling 2014 novel of the same name, and though Big Little Lies season 1 makes some changes from the book, it’s a fairly faithful adaptation. By the end of the season, both killer and victim are revealed, telling a complete story.
However, viewers wanted more. As Big Little Lies was a standalone novel, the HBO show was conceived as a miniseries. It was nominated as such for awards, of which it won many. Season 1 took home eight Primetime Emmys out of 16 nominations. Audience adoration, awards glory, and a critical score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes all pointed to Big Little Lies‘ story not being over.
So, season 2 was officially greenlit. This time, there would be no source material, though Moriarty did write a novella that served as a script guide for a second season.
When Big Little Lies season 2 premiered in 2019, the results were mixed. Though many tuned in, and Meryl Streep was a welcome addition as Perry’s passive-aggressive mother, Mary Louise, many felt the follow-up was a step down from season 1. The primary complaint was that the series abandoned its thriller mystery in favor of soapy melodrama.
While the lack of murder indeed makes Big Little Lies season 2 less thrilling, it’s still a well-acted, well-told domestic drama that continues to explore the show’s female-centric themes. Even if it didn’t reach the sky-high heights of its predecessor, the fallout experienced by the Monterey Five was a story worth telling, and writing off season 2 as a cheap “cash grab” is unfairly reductive.
Big Little Lies Season 3 Will Be Another Book Adaptation
Though it’s not all that common, a TV show going past its source material isn’t unique to Big Little Lies. The Handmaid’s Tale followed a similar trajectory, in that it adapted its first season from Margaret Atwood’s novel and continued with an original story. After Game of Thrones caught up to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, it followed a similar path.
However, the latest development — the confirmation of Big Little Lies season 3 — puts the show in a league of its own as far as adaptations are concerned. This is because Liane Moriarty is writing a sequel novel to Big Little Lies, due sometime in 2026, according to the author’s Instagram.
The second Big Little Lies book will feature a time jump, catching up with the characters a decade after the events of the original novel, with the mothers’ children all teenagers. This timeline syncs up with the show’s 2017 premiere, meaning that the child cast could theoretically all return.
It’s hard to think of a TV series that was an adaptation, then original(ish) material, then an adaptation again. This is yet another way that Big Little Lies is a pioneering and innovative show, and with another Moriarty novel as the source material, the series will hopefully return to its season 1 glory.
Big Little Lies’ Future Past Season 3 Is A Total Mystery
After season 1, each subsequent season of Big Little Lies started as a question mark, and the same is true for the show’s future beyond season 3. The second Big Little Lies book will be the first time Liane Moriarty has ever written a sequel novel, and it’s a complete mystery as to whether she’d write a third book for the show to adapt into season 4.
Of course, she could pen another novella for the HBO series to use, but given the season 2 backlash, it’s unlikely Big Little Lies will want to go down that road again.
There’s also the matter of Big Little Lies‘ ridiculously starry cast. Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, Zoë Kravitz, and Adam Scott (and Alexander Skarsgård, if Perry continues to show up in flashbacks) are all A-list, in-demand actors. They might not want to be tied down to an ongoing project.
Whatever the future holds for Big Little Lies, we can bet on this — it will be as twisty, shocking, and boundary-pushing as the show itself.
- Release Date
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2017 – 2026-00-00
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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David E. Kelley
