The Crowded Room is an American psychological thriller tv miniseries. It was inspired by the non-fiction novel The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes.
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- The Crowded Room is an American psychological thriller television miniseries.
- It was created by Akiva Goldsman.
- It was inspired by the 1981 non-fiction novel The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes.
- Tom Holland, Amanda Seyfried, and Emmy Rossum lead a supporting cast that includes Sasha Lane, Will Chase, Lior Raz, Laila Robins, and Henry Eikenberry.
- The series follows Danny Sullivan (Holland) after he was arrested for his involvement in a New York City shooting in 1979. Danny unveils his life through a series of interviews with interrogator Rya Goodwin (Seyfried), and slowly details to Rya, and the audience, his mysterious past that led him to the fateful incident. As Danny retrospectively examines his life, he reckons with his past and a few pivotal moments, ultimately leading him to uncover a life-altering revelation.
- On June 9, 2023, The Crowded Room premiered with its first three episodes on Apple TV+.
- One each of the remaining seven episodes is being released weekly through July 28, 2023.
- James Cameron attempted to make this into a feature film in the ’90s, starring John Cusack. In Cameron’s own words: “I entered an arrangement with a partner. We had joint control of the material. This partner turned out to be someone I couldn’t work with and who felt that they couldn’t work with me. We parted ways. A script had been written, we’d cast John Cusack to play the guy, and I was in pre-production. I was ready to go shoot… I will say that I believe this person behaved very unprofessionally. I also got to know Billy Milligan, and he got in the middle of this whole thing because he wanted his story told. He was running around creating more chaos, filing lawsuits. It turned into madness. We kind of got to be friends, but ultimately Billy contributed to the downfall of the project, at least in its incarnation with me. I sort of didn’t want to tell his story anymore, you know?”
- Tom Holland (Danny)’s mom is played by Emmy Rossum (Candy) who is only 10 years older than him.
- Thomas Sadoski and Amanda Seyfried are married and have 2 children together.
- This series is produced by Apple. Apple appointed Akiva Goldsman to create the series.
- In April 2021, Akiva Goldsman was set to write The Crowded Room, a 10-episode anthology television series with season one as the adaptation of Daniel Keyes’ nonfiction novel The Minds of Billy Milligan for Apple TV+.
- Goldsman was also set to produce the series through his Weed Road company with Tom Holland, Alexandra Milchan through EMJAG Productions, and Arnon Milchan, Yariv Milchan and Michael Schaefer through New Regency.
- The first season was later revealed to actually be based on Goldsman’s own life with inspiration from Keyes’ book.
- Kornél Mundruczó was hired to direct the first season and serve as an executive producer as well alongside Suzanne Heathcote.
- Writers for the first season include Akiva Goldsman, Henrietta Ashworth, Jessica Ashworth, Suzanne Heathcote, Cortney Norris and Gregory Lessans.
- Principal photography on the series began on March 31, 2022 in New York City.
- Among the noteworthy filming locations is NBC Studios, located in historic 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
- Filming wrapped on September 28, 2022.
- The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 33% approval score with an average rating of 4.9/10 based on 42 reviews. The website’s critics consensus reads, “The Crowded Room is furnished with undeniable talent and built on a promising premise, but the story runs in circles, resulting in an exhausting and often frustrating experience.”
- Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 47 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”.
- In April 2021, Holland was cast in the lead role of season one, initially believed to be Billy Milligan.
- It was later revealed to be a character named Danny Sullivan (still loosely based on Milligan).
- Goldsman was quoted saying that Holland was “the first and only person” he approached to play Danny.
- In May, Jason Isaacs and Lior Raz joined the cast.
