Laura Dern to Star as a Bartender With a Sympathetic Ear in New Quibi Series

“Just One Drink” is the latest series announced by Quibi, which is expected to have 175 shows in its first year

Laura Dern Emmys
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“Big Little Lies” star Laura Dern is set to star in “Just One Drink,” a fictional series where Dern plays a bartender who, in a series of vignettes, interacts with customers who are all in various states of emotional distress.

Few other details on the show were shared by Quibi. The show is written by Nick Hornby, who earned an Academy Award nomination a few years ago for his adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s novel Brooklyn. Dern, who is coming off performances in Oscar-nominated films like “Marriage Story” and “Little Women,” will serve as executive producer, as well as Jayme Lemons for Jaywalker Pictures. Hornby and Elisa Ellis for Platform One Media, the studio behind the show, will also EP.

Quibi is set to launch on April 6. It’ll cost $4.99 per month for ad-supported streaming, and $7.99 for ad-free service. Founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman gave the world its first look at Quibi earlier this month at CES 2020 in Las Vegas and shared it’ll have 175 new shows in its first year.

The duo’s appearance came after Quibi spent much of 2019 greenlighting dozens of shows from a number of big stars, including Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez, Bill Murray, Kris and Kendall Jenner, and Stephen Curry, among others. In the last few weeks, Quibi has tapped  “Rick & Morty” co-creator Justin Roiland to lead a new claymation series, Reese Witherspoon to narrate a docuseries on “fierce” female animals and Bill Burr for his own comedy series.

Quibi is looking to separate itself from a growing list of streaming services by making episodes that are a maximum of 10 minutes long (Quibi is short for “quick bites.”). In an interview with TheWrap last week, Katzenberg said Quibi isn’t worried about competition from services like Disney+ when it comes to winning over subscribers.

“We’re in a marathon, not a sprint,” Katzenberg said. “Disney+ is a 100-year brand with the most valued and important generational IP on earth, ever. We’re a different use case, and we don’t have the same brand recognition. So we don’t think we’ll take off like a rocketship. We think it’s something we build over the course of several years.”

 

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