Facebook picks up half-hour dramedy series starring Elizabeth Olsen

Facebook isn’t one to be outdone by Apple’s recent big content spending: It’s purchasing a 10-episode, straight-to-series half-hour drama-comedy series produced and starring Elizabeth Olsen. The production also includes Lizzy Weiss on board as showrunner, Kit Steinkellner as creator and lead writer and Master of None‘s James Ponsoldt as a directly and executive producer for a number of  episodes.

Deadline reports that the series, previously titled Widow, is one of the first of a series of planned acquisitions Facebook is doing to flesh out Facebook Watch with premium original content. Olsen, who will feature prominently in this summer’s upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, is obviously a high-profile get for the fledgling initiative at the social network.

This comes in the wake of a number of straight-to-series orders from Apple, which is likely going to be going directly toe-to-toe with Facebook Watch. Both will of course also be competing with extant industry rivals including Netflix and Hulu, and it’s worth considering what this run on Hollywood talent and productions will mean in terms of fallout for traditional TV channels and delivery vectors.

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