Max Winkler is about to direct the pilot for American Love Story, the primary installment of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology sequence, sources inform Deadline. The sequence chronicles the whirlwind courtship and marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessett, starring newcomer Paul Kelly (The Venery of Samantha Chook) as Kennedy Jr., Sarah Pidgeon as Bessett and Naomi Watts as JFK Jr’s mom, Jackie O.
American Love Story, the most recent offshoot in FX/twentieth TV’s American Crime Story franchise, is a scripted anthology sequence of sweeping real love tales that captured the world’s consideration.
Within the first season, centered on JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, what began out as a lovely union for the younger couple, extensively thought to be American royalty, started to fray beneath the stress of the relentless microscope and navel gaze of tabloid media. The pressures of their careers and rumored household discord ended with their tragic deaths when his personal airplane crashed into the ocean on a hazy summer time night time off the coast of Massachusetts.
American Love Story is government produced by Ryan Murphy, Brad Simpson, Nina Jacobson, D.V. DiVencentis and Connor Hines.
Winkler is a longtime colleague of Murphy’s having labored with him as director and government producer on Grotesquerie, a number of installments of American Horror Story, Monster and Feud. He most just lately was tapped to direct Murphy’s The Shards, primarily based on Bret Easton Ellis‘ prep college thriller novel, which is in early growth at FX. His different credit embody Minx (director), College Spirits (director/EP), The Watcher (director), Brooklyn 9-9 (director), Loopy Ex-Girlfriend (director) and New Woman (director), amongst others. His movie work consists of 2017’s Flower, which he wrote and directed.
Kelly is repped by Modern Artists. Watts is repped by CAA, Linsten Administration, Markham Froggatt & Irwin, Grant Tani Barash & Altman, Untitled Leisure and Hansen Jacobson Teller.

