If you’ve read “Not That Kind of Girl,” Lena Dunham’s memoiristic essay collection, you know that the “Girls” creator used to be obsessed with Helen Gurley Brown, the editor-in-chief of “Cosmopolitan” from 1965 to 1992.
It’s somewhat unsurprising, then, that Dunham will executive produce a new series for HBO set in the 1963 magazine world at the cusp of feminism’s second wave. The network has ordered a pilot for “Max,” a half-hour comedy, written by “Girls” writer Murray Miller. Dunham will direct the pilot, while “Girls” EPs Jenni Konner and Ilene S. Landress will executive produce the new series with her. Lisa Joyce will star as an ambitious writer who stumbles into the “women’s lib” movement.
A similarly premised drama — about a group of female journalists who demand equal pay and opportunities at a prominent magazine in 1969 at the dawn of the women’s movement — called “Good Girls Revolt” has received a pilot order from Amazon.
Meanwhile, Dunham has suggested that she will end “Girls” after its sixth season in 2017.
In addition to “Max,” HBO has a few other female-centric comedies in development: Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Divorce,” Sarah Silverman’s untitled mid-life-crisis series, Issa Rae’s “Insecure” and Whitney Cummings’ take on modern relationships, based on Maureen Dowd’s book “Are Men Necessary?”
[via THR]
