Marti Noxon Partners With Netflix to Make SO Many Shows About Heartbreaking Anti-Heroines
The Buffy alum signs a four-year, multi-million-dollar deal with the streaming network.
Writer and showrunner Marti Noxon has signed with Netflix for a massive four-year overall deal. Noxon joins the ranks of other television luminaries like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, and is set to reap the same multi-million-dollar payday. This is exciting news, as I both love and hate Marti Noxon in equal measure. I love her in that she creates complex, flawed female characters, and I hate her because said characters rip my heart out and leave me in tears every chance they get.
Noxon has been traumatizing audiences since her illustrious run on season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is the best season, don’t @ me. Season six divided fans, as many saw the series as going too dark, especially with regards to Tara’s death, but Noxon is a shrewd writer and remains unafraid to not only delve into darker themes, but to revel in them. As her Twitter bio reads, “I ruined Buffy and I will RUIN YOU TOO.”
Noxon said of the deal, “Who can resist the allure of Netflix? Not only do they continually produce ground-breaking and visually stunning content, they’ve developed a platform that’s so influential it’s become a verb. I Netflix at home, happily, and now I’m even more excited to Netflix for a living.” She previously worked with Netflix on her debut feature To the Bone, which centers on a young woman (Lily Collins) struggling with anorexia.
The VP of Originals at Netflix, Cindy Holland, said, “Marti Noxon is a brilliant and visionary creator who explores emotional depths to reveal the inner lives and struggles of complex, modern women. Her work is often both brave and vulnerable, with a distinct voice, sense of humor and tone that is uniquely her own.”
The deal comes at the end of a banner year for Noxon, who had two controversial and compulsively watchable series on television this year: AMC’s Dietland and HBO’s miniseries Sharp Objects. Both shows centered on deeply troubled women struggling against the status quo, isolated in their beliefs that something is desperately wrong with the world they live in.
Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Noxon’s work in television has come to define the modern anti-heroine. Noxon’s creations don’t worry about likability or other people’s perceptions of them. They are strong and independent, but they’re also vulnerable and troubled. Characters like Plum Kettle and Camille Preaker defy female character tropes. They’re not waiting on a man to save them, and they’re not afraid to dwell in the darkest parts of the human psyche.
Now, Marti Noxon will have free reign at Netflix to fill our screens with more beautifully complex female characters to break our hearts and reader, I will be watching ALL of them.
(via Hollywood Reporter, image: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for AMC)
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