Sofia Coppola has opened up a bit more about her scrapped adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, which was set to star Florence Pugh for Apple TV+.
Speaking to the New Yorker in a recent profile, Coppola opened up about the series, which was announced in 2020 and then promptly scrapped a year later. According to the director, Florence Pugh was set to star in the five-episode series as Undine Spragg, a Midwestern woman who finds herself rising through New York’s upper society.
However, Coppola says that Apple pulled the funding for the show abruptly, a move that shocked her. “They pulled our funding,” Coppola said. “It’s a real drag. I thought they had endless resources.”
Executives found character “unlikable”
Coppola went on to say that, during development, she would go back and forth with executives that were “mostly dudes,” and that they ultimately didn’t get the character of Undine, who they deemed “unlikable.”
“They didn’t get the character of Undine,” said Coppola. “She’s so ‘unlikable.’ But so is Tony Soprano! It was like a relationship that you know you probably should’ve gotten out of a while ago.”
This isn’t the first time that Coppola has spoken on the scrapped project. Last year in a talk with The New York Times, Coppola also referred to the idea that Apple found the character of Undine too unlikable, and noted that, even as an established director, it was hard for her to find funding for projects like these.
“The idea of an unlikable woman wasn’t their thing,” Coppola said at the time. “But that’s what I’m saying about who’s in charge. The people in charge of giving money are usually straight men, still. There’s always people in lower levels who are like myself, but then the bosses have a certain sensibility . . . If it’s so hard for me to get financing as an established person, I worry about younger women starting out. It’s surprising that it’s still a struggle.”
