Ryan Murphy Leaves Netflix for New Disney Deal
Wilson Chapman
After a $300 million dollar deal, Ryan Murphy is heading back to where he started — sort of. The “Glee” and “American Horror Story” creator is reportedly planning to leave Netflix for a new deal with the Disney Corporation, bringing him back into the fold with many of his collaborators from his time at 20th Century Fox TV.
According to a report from Bloomberg on Tuesday, while Murphy has not yet finalized his deal with Disney, he has spent the past year negotiating there and managed to iron out the details before the Writer’s Strike began in May. (With the current ongoing strike, TV development and dealmaking is largely on pause). Murphy’s Netflix deal, which was first signed in 2018, will expire this July.
Representatives for Disney and Netflix declined comment to IndieWire on Tuesday. Murphy’s personal spokesperson did not respond to our inquiry.
If the deal goes through, it will reunite Murphy with Dana Walden, who served as the CEO and head of Fox Television when Murphy worked there from 2003, with the premiere of his show “Nip/Tuck,” to 2018. Under Walden’s leadership, Murphy grew into one of the most prominent and successful showrunners in the industry, through hit shows like “Glee” for Fox and “American Horror Story,” “American Crime Story,” and “Pose” for FX. Walden joined Disney when the company acquired Fox in 2019, and currently serves as the co-chair of Disney Entertainment responsible for overseeing TV production.
When Murphy left Fox for Netflix, his $300 million deal was one of the largest for any TV creator in history. But critically and commercially, his shows struggled to match the heights of his Fox work, which won him six Emmys from 36 nominations. Unlike the mammoth success of “Bridgerton” and “Inventing Anna” from Shonda Rhimes, another big showrunner who came to Netflix via a lucrative deal at the same time, many of Murphy’s shows — including “The Politician,” “Hollywood,” “Ratched,” and “Halston” — failed to attract strong viewership, and was mostly received negatively by critics.
Things seemed to start turning around for Murphy at Netflix last year, with the one-two punch of true crime series “The Watcher” and “Dahmer — Monster.” Both shows currently rank in Netflix’s Top 10 of the most popular English language TV originals, and have been renewed for second seasons. Murphy will also head to Disney with several shows he created beforehand still ongoing, including FX series “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story” and the Fox-turned ABC procedural series “9-1-1.”
