‘Queen America’s Janice Williams Makes First Look With Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy-nominated producer Janice Williams has signed her Well Red banner to a first look deal with Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories. This follows their successful collaboration on the Facebook Watch series Queen America. They worked together on the Andrew Jarecki-directed All Good Things and the Gus Van Sant-directed Oscar winner Milk.

Made Up Stories is coming off a strong Sundance, produced the Abe Forsythe-directed Lupita Nyong’o dark zombie comedy Little Monsters that was bought by NEON and Hulu and Jennifer Kent’s Nightingale which landed at IFC. On the TV side, the company is currently in pre-production on the David E. Kelley-scripted Susanne Bier-directed HBO limited series The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, and in post-production on the TNT series Tell Me Your Secrets, written by Harriet Warner and directed by  Houda Benyamina.

Williams hatched her company in early 2018 after an 11-year run as production president of Michael London’s Groundswell Productions. Her credits include HBO’s Confirmation, Trumbo, Birth Of The Dragon, Love The Coopers, The Final Girls, Very Good Girls and Lola Versus. On the TV side, Williams exec produced the Catherine Zeta-Jones-starrer Queen America, The Astronaut Wives Club for ABC, The Magicians for SyFy and SMILF for Showtime.

Papandrea said she was sparked to take “our wonderful producing collaboration with Janice to the next level. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her for many years, including on our recent Queen America series, and she’s simply one of the most talented and knowledgeable film and tv producers in the business – what a joy to have her officially part of the Made Up Stories family.

Williams called Papandrea “one of the industry’s top producers with impeccable taste and I love the company’s commitment to female-forward stories.”

Papandrea and Made Up Stories are repped by WME; Williams by Katz Golden Rosenman.