Producer Ryan Murphy is expected to move to Disney
Ryan Murphy, the TV mega-producer behind hits like “American Horror Story” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” is about to move his operation to the Walt Disney Company, five years after stunning Hollywood with to switch to Netflix for $300 million. agreement.
Contract talks with Disney have not yet concluded, said three people who were briefed on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. The deal is not expected to be finalized until the Hollywood screenwriters’ strike is resolved, one of the people said. (Union film and television writers have been on strike since May 1.)
But talks between Mr. Murphy and Disney are well advanced, people said. Mr. Murphy’s contract with Netflix expires at the end of this month. Renewal talks with Netflix never got off the ground.
Representatives of Mr. Murphy, Disney and Netflix declined to comment or did not return calls. reported Bloomberg Mr. Murphy is likely moving to Disney earlier on Tuesday.
A deal with Disney would formally reunite Mr. Murphy with executives with whom he has worked closely for more than a decade. Disney owns the FX cable channel, home to its “American Horror Story” franchise, which began in 2011. (The series also runs on Hulu, which Disney operates.) ABC, Disney’s broadcast network, recently bought the rights to ‘9-1-1’, a drama that Mr. Murphy made for Fox in 2018.
When Mr. Murphy signed his Netflix deal in February 2018, it was just six months after another star producer, Shonda Rhimes, signed her own nine-figure contract with the streaming company. The back-to-back signings were an emphatic statement from Netflix that it was willing to pay any price for great writers. In the process, it set off an arms race in Hollywood (which, amid wider concerns about the streaming business and the writers’ strike, has largely cooled).
Murphy’s tenure at Netflix got off to a bumpy start. Misfires included “The Politician” and “Hollywood.” It wasn’t until last September that Mr. Murphy served up bona fide hits in “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and “The Watcher.” Both series belong to the 10 most watched Netflix originals ever, according to the streaming service.
Mr. Murphy, who continued to make shows for Disney even though he was under contract with Netflix – new seasons of “9-1-1” and “American Crime Story” continued steadily – would also continue to make shows for Netflix after a move to Disney. The next edition of “Monster” will focus on Erik and Lyle Menéndez, the brothers serving life sentences for the 1989 murder of their wealthy parents, and “The Watcher” has been renewed for another season.