'Friends' Star Jennifer Aniston Returns To TV With Reese Witherspoon
CUPERTINO (CBS SF/AP) — "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston is coming back to television and she's partnering with Reese Witherspoon.
The Apple streaming service said Wednesday the actresses will star in and produce a behind-the-scenes drama series about a TV morning show.
Aniston came to fame as Rachel on the hit NBC comedy Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2000. She then focused on films, including Office Space, Bruce Almighty and Marley & Me.
The Oscar-winning Witherspoon (Walk the Line) made a TV splash last season with HBO's Emmy-winning series Big Little Lies, which she starred in and produced with Nicole Kidman.
The new series marks a TV reunion for its stars. Witherspoon played Jill Green, sister to Aniston's Rachel Green on two episodes of Friends.
Landing the buzzed-about project represents a coup for Apple, which said it's ordered two seasons but didn't announce the show's title, release date or whether the shows will be distributed on iTunes or a different platform.
The series was described by Apple as "an inside look at the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning, exploring the unique challenges faced by the women (and men) who carry out this daily televised ritual."
It will draw on Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV by Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent. The 2013 book relates the rivalry between NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America.
Stelter is a consultant on the drama, and Jay Carson (House of Cards) is writing the pilot and is an executive producer along with Michael Ellenberg, Witherspoon and Aniston.
The show and Steven Spielberg's reboot of his Amazing Stories, 1980/s anthology series are the first two original dramas ordered by Apple and follow the hiring earlier this year of Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht to oversee video content.
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