Jason Moore Previews 'Murder, She Wrote' Movie, 'Elle' Season 2
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- Jason Moore directed the first two episodes of Prime Video's 'Elle,' starring Lexi Minetree as a young Elle Woods, and was won over after initially wanting to leave the 'Legally Blonde' canon untouched.
- Moore revealed that 'Elle' Season 2 will feature all-archival wardrobe, after Season 1 mostly built looks to appear archival, with the original movie's costumer granting access to her archive.
- Reese Witherspoon visited the 'Elle' set twice during Moore's block, including the biggest day with 200 extras filming the hospital scene; Moore recalled coordinating Witherspoon's heel height to match Minetree's.
- Minetree had all eight episodes memorized by the first day of shooting and trained weekly with a Broadway voice coach to replicate Witherspoon's intonations and breaths without becoming a caricature.
- Creator Laura Kittrell led an all-female creative team on 'Elle,' the only male being Moore, and he was struck by research showing Black women widely claimed Elle Woods as a hero.
- Moore's 'Murder, She Wrote' movie stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Jessica Fletcher, will retain the typewriter despite a modern-day setting, and will deploy the theme song in a way meant to surprise viewers.
- Moore framed the 'Murder, She Wrote' film as leaning into Agatha Christie-style twists, true to the show's core but 'a jumping off point for a great murder mystery,' with Angela Lansbury references as Easter Eggs for hardcore fans.
Why it matters: Two legacy IP revivals now have a single director at the helm of their opening chapters: Moore's handling of 'Elle' Season 2's archival wardrobe and Witherspoon's set chemistry shapes Amazon's streaming bet on expanding the 'Legally Blonde' brand, while his 'Murder, She Wrote' film must thread a nostalgic typewriter-and-theme-song needle for Angela Lansbury's audience without alienating viewers who never watched the original.
