HBO’s ‘Scenes From a Marriage’ Remake to Star Oscar Isaac and Michelle Williams

Scenes from a Marriage remake

HBO is developing a limited series remake of Scenes From a Marriage, the 6-episode Swedish television series directed by master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman in the 1970s. Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) and Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea) are set to star in this new version, which will be written, produced, and directed by Hagai Levi (The Affair).

Variety broke the news about HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage remake, which aims to “to re-examine the [Swedish version’s] depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, marriage and divorce through the lens of a contemporary American couple.” Bergman, the beloved filmmaker behind The Seventh Seal, Persona, Fanny and Alexander, and many more, directed the original 6-episode drama which covered a ten year period in the marriage between Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson). The show aired on Swedish television, and a year later, Bergman edited it down into a film. Here are a couple of clips to give you a sense of the tone:

I have not seen the original series or film, but watching these clips, it certainly seems like Isaac and Williams are well-suited for these roles. Williams has carved out a niche playing emotionally tortured women in films like Blue Valentine, My Week with Marilyn, Manchester by the Sea, and After the Wedding, and she has the same type of open-hearted vulnerability which Ullmann seems to have brought to the part when she originated it. Meanwhile, Isaac can play cocky and arrogant with the best of them, while also bringing a darker, dangerous quality to his work that might fit nicely with this type of potentially acerbic material.

Williams is very familiar with the limited series format, having won an Emmy for her work on Fosse/Verdon just last year. Isaac hasn’t appeared in a TV series since 2015’s Show Me a Hero, for which he won a Golden Globe. Williams and Isaac are also set to executive produce the show alongside Lars Blomgren, Daniel Bergman (Ingmar’s son), Blair Breard, and Michael Ellenberg, HBO’s former head of drama who has been working on adapting this into a limited series for years.

Hagai Levi will also executive produce this Scenes From a Marriage remake in addition to writing and directing. Levi has plenty of experience with emotionally intense and invasive subject matter like this: he co-created Showtime’s recent drama series The Affair, and also created the Israeli TV series Be’Tipul, which was adapted into the HBO series In Treatment in 2008.

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