Big Hollywood names rushing to small screen

Nicole Kidman will star in Big Little Lies. Photo / AP

Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman are the latest A-listers wanting to be part of television’s golden age.

Suddenly, Hollywood's biggest names all want to be a part of television's new golden age.

The latest to follow the trend are Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, who will star in the adaptation of the novel Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, an Australian author who specialises in witty, incisive scrutiny of modern life.

This story follows a trio of women with preschool-aged children.

The series, which will have a limited run, doesn't have a broadcast home yet, but is expected to go out to buyers soon. Hard to imagine it won't find one. The project is a long-awaited comeback for former TV royalty David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, The Practice), who is set to write it.

And Witherspoon's production company, Pacific Standard - now on a roll with Gone Girl and her own Best Actress contender, Wild - is involved.

The announcement comes as True Detective has finalised its next cast list, which includes big-screen veterans Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch.

This bug must be contagious. Either that, or the Who's Who of Hollywood have found the same merits in the small screen that Matthew McConaughey recognised before taking the role of Rustin Cohle on the first season of HBO's True Detective, beside Woody Harrelson.

"Quality. Not only quality that specifically came out of True Detective which was quality of the highest, but I'm talking about quality of television today," McConaughey told Business Insider. "Television is raising the bar on the character-driven drama series. It just is."

The time commitment probably helps. True Detective is an anthology series where each season has a distinct story and a different cast.

For an actor, that's the same gamble as taking on a limited series format or a mini-series. They can spend a few months on set without worrying about getting sucked into multiple seasons, and then get back to working on Oscar fodder.

The format has flourished to the point that even the Hollywood Foreign Press, which puts on the Golden Globes, addressed the trend.

The category formerly known as mini-series will now be called "limited series," and includes anthology series with shifting storylines and changing characters. That means, come January 11, True Detective could be up against other one-off shows with similarly impressive A-list cast members, including mini-series Olive Kitteridge (Oscar winner Frances McDormand); anthology series American Horror Story (Oscar winners Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates); anthology series Fargo (Billy Bob Thornton); and mini-series The Honourable Woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Joining Witherspoon and Kidman on the limited series list is Scarlett Johansson, who will star in an eight-episode period drama adapted from Edith Wharton's Custom of the Country. Marvel big-screen villain Tom Hiddleston will join House star Hugh Laurie in a John le Carre-based limited series, Night Manager.

Television movies, meanwhile, have also been gaining prestige and attracting big names. HBO seems to be leading the charge with its A-list appeal, including Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo in The Normal Heart, Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in Behind the Candelabra and Julianne Moore and Ed Harris in Game Change.

The auteurs have hopped on the TV train, too, including Steven Soderbergh, Martin Scorsese and Gone Girl director David Fincher, who recently said: "Right now people are discovering television because it's where all the most interesting characters have gone."

Maybe that's why some actors don't mind betting big on TV and joining regular series. Oscar nominees Viola Davis and Clive Owen now headline their own shows (How to Get Away With Murder and The Knick), while Oscar nominees Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson will star in the crime drama Empire, premiering in 2015. The list goes on.