Big Little Lies Season 3: HBO Boss Offers Explanation for Long Delay

Michael Ausiello
·2-min read

HBO’s return trip to Monterey remains on hold, according to the premium cabler’s top exec. And now we know why.

Though Nicole Kidman trumpeted back in November 2023, “We are bringing you a third [season],” the reality is, “We’re waiting for the book,” HBO president Casey Bloys told reporters Tuesday, referring to author Liane Moriarty’s latest chapter of the story, which is currently being written. “We need to read the book [first].”

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Bloys’ comments follow Big Little Lies EP David E. Kelley’s assertion to TVLine’s Matt Mitovich over the summer, “We’re a bit away from [starting production]. We’ve got Reese [Witherspoon] and Nicole leading that charge… There are a lot of schedules that have to be worked out, but there’s a lot of passion for the project, from everybody involved. And I miss the characters! It would be great to spend time with them again because they were all very close to me. So, yeah, we’re all crossing our fingers.”

Kidman has long documented her strong desire to re-team with co-stars Witherspoon (also an EP), Shailene Woodley, Zoë Kravitz and Laura Dern on a third chapter of the Emmy-winning franchise, telling TVLine in Oct. 2020, “There are so many great stories to tell and I am open to all the different horizons. We all love each other and want to work together. We’re deeply intertwined now. Whether that [camaraderie yields] a story that will be fascinating and complex and important, that’s a different thing. It would need to be a story that makes our jaws drop.”

Meanwhile, the untimely death of Big Little Lies‘ EP (and Season 1 director) Jean-Marc Vallée in 2021 seemingly served as another hurdle, as Kravitz noted in 2022.

“I can’t imagine going on without him,” she shared to GQ at the time. “He really was the visionary for that show.”

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