Big Little Lies Season 3 Filmed for Just One Day — Here’s the Real Reason Why

Monterey is back in business — sort of. After years of waiting, hoping, and half-believing it would never actually happen, Big Little Lies has officially started filming its third season. Well, for one day, anyway. And no, that is not a joke, a typo, or a particularly cruel prank on one of television’s most patient fanbases.

According to a new report from Variety, cameras rolled on the HBO drama for exactly one day this week, with Merrin Dungey — who plays Detective Adrienne Quinlan — filming scenes on the Ranch Lot at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank on Thursday. Then production packed up again. The full shoot is not expected to get properly underway until 2027, and even that date is not locked in yet.

So why bother filming for a single day at all? The answer, as is so often the case in Hollywood, comes down to money — specifically, a California state tax credit. Insiders say the one-day shoot was staged to protect the show’s approved tax incentive, which requires production to actually begin within a certain window. Film one day, keep the credit, come back later when the schedules finally line up. It is the kind of pragmatic, slightly absurd industry maneuver that would probably make the women of Monterey roll their eyes — and then pour another glass of wine.

There is also no director officially confirmed for season three yet, though insiders report that the director on set this week was someone already involved with the show and approved by the Directors Guild. In other words, this was a placeholder shoot in the truest sense: just enough to keep the machinery moving while the real production waits its turn.

Still, for fans who have been waiting since 2019 — yes, really, it has been that long — even one day of filming counts as news worth celebrating. The Monterey Five are coming back. Eventually.

Who Is Returning to Monterey?

The good news, and the reason this one-day shoot matters at all, is that the core cast is locked in. The third season will see the return of Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, and Shailene Woodley, with Meryl Streep — who joined the cast in season two as the formidable Mary Louise Wright — also part of the ensemble.

That is no small feat. Getting four Oscar winners and one of the most in-demand young actresses of her generation back on the same set, on the same schedule, is basically the television equivalent of herding cats in couture. Kidman and Witherspoon are also executive producers on the series through their respective companies, Blossom Films and Hello Sunshine, which means they have been shepherding this revival from the very beginning, not just showing up to say the lines.

Kidman stars as Celeste Wright, the seemingly perfect Monterey wife whose marriage to Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) hid a devastating story of domestic abuse — a storyline that earned Kidman an Emmy and a Golden Globe, and that remains one of the most talked-about performances of her career. Witherspoon plays Madeline Martha Mackenzie, the sharp-tongued, big-hearted engine of the group, while Woodley is Jane Chapman, the single mother whose arrival in Monterey set the whole story in motion. Dern’s Renata Klein, the high-powered executive with a gloriously short fuse, stole just about every scene she was in during season two.

And then there is Streep. Her arrival as Perry’s grieving, suspicious mother turned season two into an acting masterclass, and her dinner-table confrontation with Kidman’s Celeste is still quoted by fans today. If season three brings her back into the fold, expect fireworks.

Why Has Season Three Taken So Long?

The road to season three has been long, winding, and at times seemingly closed for good. The show was originally conceived as a limited series, adapted from Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel of the same name. Season one, which premiered in 2017, told a complete story: a murder at a school trivia night, a group of women bound by secrets, and a finale that tied it all together with a twist that genuinely shocked viewers.

It was also a phenomenon. Season one won eight Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, and turned its cast into awards-season royalty. HBO, understandably, wanted more. Moriarty wrote a novella-length treatment for a second season, and in 2019 the show returned — this time as an ongoing drama, with Streep joining the cast and Andrea Arnold directing.

Season two ended with the Monterey Five walking into the police station together, ready — finally — to tell the truth about what happened on trivia night. It was a perfect setup for a third season. And then… silence. Years of it.

Part of the delay was scheduling. Kidman, Witherspoon, Dern, Woodley, and Streep are not exactly sitting by the phone waiting for calls. Each of them has headlined films, launched production companies, and fronted other prestige series in the years since. Part of it was the question of story: where do you take characters whose biggest secret has already been confessed? And part of it was simply the machinery of modern television, where a show with this many stars and this much pedigree does not get greenlit on a whim.

Kidman has been vocal about wanting to return, though. She has said in interviews over the years that the cast kept the group chat alive and that she never gave up on a third season. Witherspoon, too, has spoken about how much the show means to her, both as an actress and as a producer. When HBO finally confirmed season three was moving forward, it felt less like a surprise and more like a promise finally being kept.

What Could Season Three Actually Be About?

Here is where things get interesting — and where fans have spent years speculating. Season two’s finale left the Monterey Five on the steps of the police station, about to confess to covering up Perry’s death. That confession has consequences, legally and personally, and season three will have to deal with them head-on.

Will the women face charges? Will their friendships survive the fallout of finally telling the truth? What happens to their marriages, their children, and the carefully constructed lives they have built in Monterey? Those are rich questions, and they are exactly the kind of messy, grown-up drama this show does best.

There is also the matter of the kids. The children of Monterey — Ziggy, Amabella, Chloe, and the twins, Josh and Max — were small when the show began. They are teenagers now, at least in real time, and a season set in the present day could explore what growing up in the shadow of that night has done to them. Moriarty’s novels have always been as much about mothers and children as about murder, and that thread feels ripe for a new chapter.

Of course, HBO is keeping plot details firmly under wraps for now. No scripts have leaked, no loglines have been released, and the one-day shoot this week involved a supporting character, not the main ensemble — so do not expect set photos of Kidman and Witherspoon sipping coffee on a Monterey pier just yet. Those will come, in time. For now, the show is asking fans for a little more patience. After seven years, what is one more?

The Tax Credit Trick, Explained

If the one-day shoot sounds strange, it is actually a fairly common Hollywood practice, and it tells you something about how precarious big productions can be. California’s film and television tax credit program is fiercely competitive — studios apply, get approved, and then must meet certain production milestones to hold onto the money. If a show waits too long to start filming, it risks losing the credit entirely, which can mean millions of dollars.

So productions sometimes stage a short shoot: a day or two of filming, enough to satisfy the requirement and keep the incentive alive, while the full production schedule is still being assembled. It is not glamorous, and it is not the stuff of red-carpet premieres, but it is how the business works. In this case, it also served as a quiet signal to the industry — and to fans — that season three is not just a press release. It is real, it is staffed, and it is moving, even if it is moving slowly.

The fact that the shoot took place on the Warner Bros. Ranch Lot in Burbank, rather than on location in Monterey, California, is another clue. The show’s sun-drenched coastal exteriors are a huge part of its identity, but a one-day tax-credit shoot does not need ocean views. It needs a soundstage, a crew, and a camera. The pretty stuff comes later.

Why This Show Still Matters

It is worth stepping back for a moment and remembering just how big a deal Big Little Lies was — and still is. When it premiered in 2017, it helped define the modern prestige limited series: movie stars on television, a female-led ensemble, a story that treated domestic life as seriously as any crime drama. It arrived at the height of the streaming wars and proved that HBO could still make appointment television.

It also changed the careers of everyone involved. Kidman’s Celeste remains one of her defining roles. Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine went from promising startup to media empire, in part on the back of this show’s success. Dern and Woodley delivered career-best work, and the series gave us one of the great opening title sequences of all time — Michael Kiwanuka’s “Cold Little Heart” playing over those winding coastal roads.

That is why a one-day shoot makes headlines. Fans are not just waiting for a show; they are waiting for a reunion. The Monterey Five became a kind of cultural shorthand for female friendship under pressure, for the gap between how perfect a life looks and how it actually feels. A third season does not need to top the first two. It just needs to be honest about where these women are now.

So yes, season three filmed for one day and then stopped. It sounds like a punchline. But in the strange, stop-start world of prestige television, it is actually a beginning. The cameras have rolled. The tax credit is safe. The cast is coming back. And somewhere, in a writers’ room or a production office in Los Angeles, the next chapter of Monterey’s story is finally taking shape. Fans have waited seven years. They can wait a little longer — especially now that the wait has an end in sight.

Source: Just Jared