When Murder She Wrote first came on the air in 1984, Angela Lansbury was 59 years old. It was considered a big deal that an “older woman” was the lead in an hour-long network drama, but Murder She Wrote was one of the most popular shows of the 1980s and 1990s. It ran for twelve seasons. For years, people have been talking about rebooting or reimagining the series, but I had no idea that they were going to do it as a FILM reboot. While this is right up my alley, my heart sank when I found out who was cast as the new Jessica Fletcher: Jamie Lee Curtis. Boooooooo.
Jamie Lee Curtis is the new Jessica Fletcher, but she won’t be getting into character for a while. On Tuesday, July 22, the actress, 66, confirmed to Entertainment Tonight that she would be starring in the Murder, She Wrote reboot movie while attending the Los Angeles premiere of Freakier Friday.
“Oh it’s…” Curtis said with a suspenseful pause before adding, “Happening.”
However, the Oscar winner cautioned that the movie wouldn’t be coming for a while, explaining, “We’re a minute away. But very excited. Very excited.”
Curtis said, “But I’m tamping down my enthusiasm until we start shooting. I have a couple other things to hustle and then I’ll get to enjoy that work.”
PEOPLE previously reported that Curtis was the top choice to play the show’s iconic character — which was previously played by Angela Lansbury — in December, citing Deadline.
Absolutely not. I will not watch this with Jamie. It’s been crazy to watch as Jamie has squandered any goodwill she had, first with that terrible Oscar campaign (which was successful) and then with her smug, preachy behavior afterwards. I’m STILL mad that she won the Oscar and it’s been years.
Anyway, I mentioned Lansbury’s age when MSW started because I wanted to see the kind of age-timeframe producers were looking at. Lansbury was 59 when she started, Jamie Lee is 66. Let’s just list some actresses between the ages of 55 to 69 to see if any of these women would do a much better job with Jessica Fletcher: Octavia Spencer (55), Viola Davis (59), Laura Linney (61), Sandra Bullock (61), Marisa Tomei (60), Julianne Moore (64). That’s just a partial list of actresses who would do a better job than Jamie Lee! That’s just who I came up with in a few minutes! Octavia would be amazing, so would Laura Linney and Marisa Tomei.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
