'Furious' Creator Explains How Series Reinvents the 1987 Film

Furious, the new Disney+ series, starts from a stated reference point: the 1987 film Black Widow. The production even includes Ronald Bass, screenwriter of the original feature, as an executive producer. But according to creator Liz Meriwether, the film’s premise served only as the foundation for a far more ambitious story.

In the original film, the killer played by Theresa Russell follows the classic “black widow” model: she marries wealthy men and kills them for their money. Meriwether started there, but quickly realized that sustaining eight episodes would require a more complex character. "I needed to dig deeper into a more fully developed story," she explained in an exclusive interview with Omelete.

It was during that process that the creator dove into research on real female serial killers, discovering a pattern that shaped Catherine: nearly all of them had been victims of violence at some point in their lives, many worked as caregivers, and they often knew their own victims. These elements became the psychological backbone of the character.

Meriwether also brought to Furious an interest she had already explored in Dying for Sex, the miniseries she also made for Disney+: how trauma affects memory. According to her, people who go through violent experiences do not always remember events clearly or in the right order, and it was this concept that led her to build Catherine (Lola Petticrew) as someone who is also trying to piece together what happened to her.

The result is an unusual twist for the genre: the killer herself does not know exactly why she kills until the season progresses. "It’s really interesting to me to tell a story where the main character doesn’t even know why she’s doing what she’s doing," said Meriwether, noting that the answer only comes to the audience at the end of the season, alongside Catherine.

Furious is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.