Hulu beat HBO Max to the finish the line when it comes to telling the story of Candy Montgomery.
The streamer released the first episode of the limited series, starring Jessica Biel and Melanie Lynskey, on May 9, introducing viewers to this sinister true-crime story that captivated the country in the '80s. In a few months, HBO Max will release its own take on the grisly crime, starring Elizabeth Olsen as Candy—an adaptation Candy writer Robin Veith is "actually excited" about, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Yes, the two shows are going to be compared to each other, but Veith doesn't think it's a big deal. "The thing about this story is there's like 100 ways to tell this story," Veith said. "I'm also the person who watched three Fyre Festival documentaries that came out at the same time, I watched them all back-to-back. I just love different perspectives, so I'm very excited for what they're doing."
She noted that the writers didn't feel a sense of competition or pressure since they already "had a take and a story that we wanted to tell," so they kept moving full steam ahead.
And co-creator Nick Antosca noted that it isn't uncommon for networks to tell the same story—case in point: anything about the Tiger King—so he was similarly unfazed: "All respect to them and all the other projects, you just make the show that you want to make."
While HBO Max's adaptation, due out later this year, is based on the thoroughly reported Texas Monthly article Love and Death in Silicon Prairie, Veith and Antosca said that they were more interested in the psychological aspects of this story.
"There was something about this story, about a woman's explosive rage at 10 o'clock in the morning, seemingly over very little," Veith said, "that felt apropos of the #MeToo moment of like, ‘Hey, we can actually talk about this feminine rage, this female rage that we carry around with us that we're not supposed to acknowledge.'"
Antosca and Veith's Candy airs in a five-night event that started May 9 and concludes May 13."