Ryan Murphy doesn’t do things by half.
This is a man who launched and brought back six television shows over the last two weeks including ABC’s Joshua Jackon-fronted Doctor Odyssey, FX’s Grotesquerie featuring Niecy Nash and Travis Kelce and Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, has another launching later this month in FX’s American Horror Stories and is heading straight into a run that includes All’s Fair, starring the likes of Kim Kardashian and Glenn Close, reuniting with Evan Peters in FX sci-fi series The Beauty and the first iteration of American Love Story about John F. Kennedy Jr.
The data shows that such an “intense” workload is paying off.
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Netflix revealed earlier today that Monsters: The Lyle & Erik Menendez Story scored 19.5M views in its first full week on the service, where it is number one, and totaling nearly 32M views since it launched.
On ABC, 9-1-1 and Doctor Odyssey helped the Disney-owned network become the number one entertainment network on Thursday (September 26). 9-1-1, which is in its eighth season and second on ABC, scored 4.77M total viewers on the night, while Doctor Odyssey has delivered a total of 7.59M viewers since its launch, without final MP3 data.
At Fox, 9-1-1: Lone Star’s season five premiere on September 23, was the network’s most-watched scripted show in a year and a half.
Murphy’s shows, which also include American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, have also performed well for Disney on streaming. Doctor Odyssey and 9-1-1 have both been number one and two, respectively in the Hulu Top 15 for the last three days and American Sports Story, Grotesquerie, and Doctor Odyssey all hit number on the Hulu list.
“I feel a lot of gratitude, because what I tried to do, and what everybody in my company tried to do was daunting,” Murphy told Deadline. “I don’t know that anybody’s ever done that before: six shows in two weeks.”
He said that it “all came together after the strike” and he returned to Disney with a new overall deal, having just delivered Netflix a big hit with Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. “Everybody wanted titles for the fall. They wanted to get things back into production. They asked me, and I said ‘Ok’. I looked at the calendar, which was insane, but I said ‘I think we can do it’. And we did. What I love about it is that you go into doing something like this and you think, well some of them are going to work, right? I know the audience is going to look for them, but the fact that they all worked, all became number one, and they’re all still working, that is kind of mind blowing, I did not expect that. I only make shows that I want to watch, so I’m thrilled that other people agree.”
“I’m really thrilled that I got so many people back work after the strike, that’s a lot of crew members. I’ve worked with many of them for 23 years. It was a really hard time in our business, and a lot of people suffered. The fact that so many people got to put food on the table and keep employed and keep their benefits, that’s never lost on me, and I, I am thrilled for that opportunity,” he added.
Murphy said that he’s “always interested in doing the opposite of what I’ve done”, highlighting Doctor Odyssey as a throwback to The Love Boat, which he says was his favorite show as a kid.
ABC has ordered a full season of Doctor Odyssey with 18 episodes so Murphy isn’t waiting for a back-nine order, like he might have done in the past. “Based on how well it’s doing, I’m pretty optimistic about a second season for that show,” he said.
Next up, he starts directing All’s Fair on Friday. That show, a legal drama for Hulu, stars Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash, Teyana Taylor and Naomi Watts alongside Kardashian and Close, and is described by Murphy as “a high-end, glossy and sexy adult procedural.”
“It’s my version of a law show. You’ve never seen a law show quite like that,” he added.
From there, he goes into The Beauty for FX, a drama series based on a graphic novel about an STD that makes those affected beautiful. It stars Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope and Ashton Kutcher alongside Peters. Murphy said that it will shoot in Europe and that the special effects will take a year.
“I’m excited that I just keep moving from genre to genre, and I’m lucky to be able to do,” he added.
He’s also planning ahead, including starting to shoot FX’s American Love Story, about the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, in the spring.
“I sort of look at my life, I plan it by year, and if I zoom out too far then I get freaked out. I know in the next year of my life, I’m doing All’s Fair, The Beauty and the JFK Jr. Carolyn Bessette love story, which we start shooting in the spring. That’s happening so that takes me to this time next year. I’m like, okay, I’m good,” he added.
After Murphy left Disney to move to Netflix in 2018, he still had a number of shows across Disney platforms including 9-1-1 and Feud. Similarly, he still has a number of Netflix shows that may return including Monsters and a second season of The Watcher, which was renewed in November 2022.
“I have a great partner in all my work there in Ian Brennan. Ian and I love doing Monsters and that will continue. We’ll continue doing it as long as they want it and I know that they do want it, and we’re signed up to do more seasons of it. I don’t know about The Watcher. I think Ian might be doing that. I sort of feel like my plate is so full with Monsters and my six Disney shows that I’m like ‘I’m good’,” he added.
All of this comes as Murphy’s first television creation recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Popular, which starred Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope, launched on The WB on September 29, 1999 and ran for two seasons.
“To come from that to this, is remarkable to me, because when I made that show, making it was hell on earth. The executives on that show were awful. They did not like my point of view. They did not like that I was a gay man. They did not care for my sensibility. I was noted and noted, noted, and it ended after two years, and it was not a good experience, and I felt very wounded from it, because I felt like this is very personal, because it’s my point of view being canceled,” he said.
“25 years ago, there was no gay person doing something like that. You weren’t allowed to do that, you were put in a box, and you were told what to do and what not to do. The fact that I could do so many things, and I have the support of so many people like Dana Walden and John Landgraf, that’s an amazing evolution.”
Two years ago, Murphy told Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, that he might “retire and launch a line of beeswax products”, which is obviously not happening anytime soon.
“Yes, I will never retire,” he said.