Sam Zvibleman continues his ascent from indie comedy darling to serious dramatic talent. His Pen15 pedigree—four Primetime Emmy nominations, a "sensitive male gaze" praised by Levy herself—positions him as the perfect vessel for translating this complex female narrative to screen.
Industry whispers suggest Vice Studios is aggressively pivoting toward prestige TV after mixed results in streaming. Landing Zvibleman—a known quantity with critical acclaim—is a calculated statement that Vice means business in the scripted space.
Pen15 earned four Primetime Emmy Award nominations during its run on Hulu. The source article was published June 22, 2026, by The Hollywood Reporter. Zvibleman wrote and directed most Pen15 episodes for Hulu, and is repped by Iconoclast and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
This project has all the markings of a prestige acquisition—Emmy-nominated talent, provocative source material, and a platform hungry for credibility. But the real story might be Vice Studios positioning itself as the home for bold, unflinching storytelling about women who refuse to play nice.
Sam Zvibleman, the co-creator behind Hulu's critically acclaimed comedy Pen15, is set to adapt Anika Jade Levy's debut novel Flat Earth for Vice Studios—marking a notable creative pivot for both the filmmaker and the studio. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Zvibleman will not only co-write the adaptation alongside Levy but also direct the pilot episode. Levy wasted no time expressing her confidence in the hiring, issuing a statement that praised what she called Zvibleman's "sensitive male gaze" and "sincere curiosity about the inner lives of women." The author's words carry weight given Flat Earth's unflinching subject matter—a wry, sharply observed portrait of female ambition set in New York City.
"There's no one I trust more to translate Flat Earth to television," Levy said in her statement to THR. The source material follows best friends Avery and Frances as they navigate friendship, rivalry, obsession, and survival in a city that "perennially produces young, hot, brilliant women with curatorial level taste and then discards them when they've aged out of the proverbial pleated skirt." The narrative takes an even darker turn through Frances' experimental documentary also titled Flat Earth, which pulls the duo on a cross-country road trip where "red America and blue America begin to look like different brands of the same competing hallucination." Perhaps most provocatively, the plot follows Avery as she descends into increasingly desperate circumstances—financially unraveling during a nationwide Adderall shortage, dating men who despise her including a liberal law professor twice her age and a reactionary young artist.
Eventually, out of desperation, she takes a job at a right-wing dating app called Patriarchy, sliding into "a series of increasingly transactional relationships." When Frances simultaneously becomes famous and pregnant, Avery's unraveling intensifies to breaking point. Zvibleman brings serious credentials to the project. Pen15—a comedy about middle schoolers navigating the awkwardness of their teenage years—was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards during its run on Hulu.
The show earned critical praise for its nuanced portrayal of adolescence and female friendship, skills that seem directly transferable to Levy's more adult themes. Beyond Pen15, Zvibleman has directed full seasons of CBC's The Neddeaus of Duqesne Island and NBCUniversal's Take My Wife. The acquisition signals Vice Studios' continued push into scripted programming following its recent headline-making projects.
The studio is currently in production on Gangs of London and will soon release the feature film Bad Apples starring Saoirse Ronan. Vice also recently announced an adaptation of the video game franchise Payday, which THR exclusively revealed in March.
