Late last year, Shonda Rhimes (producer of TV hits like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder) announced that she’d be taking her talents to Netflix. Well, now we have a better picture of what she’ll be working on for the streaming service.
The Hollywood Reporter has released a sneak peek at the eight projects currently lined up. Of course, all of them sound awesome, but most importantly, Rhimes will be adapting The Bridgertons.
Yes, those Bridgertons!
An untitled Bridgerton project. Based on Julia Quinn’s best-selling series of novels, the series is a feminist take on Regency England romance unveils the glittering, wealthy, sexual, painful, funny and sometimes lonely lives of the women and men in London’s high society marriage mart as told through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family. Scandal‘s Chris Van Dusen will adapt, exec produce and showrun the drama.
Julia Quinn has confirmed the news on her website and, if you want to hear more about Shonda’s plans for Netflix, The New York Times has a lengthy interview.
I am very curious to hear more. Do you think she’ll start with The Duke and I ( A | K | G | AB ) or just set the series in the “world” of the books?
Like everyone else, I am desperate for more information and I’m more than okay with Netflix trying to fill the TV/movie romance gap.
What do you think? Do you have faith in Shonda? Which Bridgerton book are you most excited to have adapted?
I’m so excited!!! Shonda will bring the dramatics necessary for an enjoyable adaptation. If anything…Why are more people not doing this? There are a few book series (Penny Reid comes to mind) I would love to see on Netflix, HBO, or whatever. I’m most excited for The Duke and I. Excited to see who will be cast.
I’m not a big fan of Shonda Rhimes’ shows but bring it on! I feel like they will likely set it in the world and maybe twist some of the plots together? Passionflix has been fun but I’d been wishing they would do a historical. It’s nice to see other options for romance book adaptations.
I’m really curious about this. Shonda Rimes usually creates such racially diverse shows – I’m curious what she’ll do with Julia Quinn’s very white version of recency England.
I’m very interested to see how she handles the adaption (if she goes for a one book per series approach or something else)
I also look forward to the inevitable backlash to the (hopefully) more racially diverse adaptation compared to the book.
I also wonder how the adaptation will benefit the first two books, which are the least good of the series in my opinion and how the Lady Whistledown stuff will be handled, since the adaptors would know who she really is.
Fingers crossed
Ohhhh I am pumped!!
@cleo I thought about this, too. I’d love to see them think about color-blind casting ala Hamilton.
SO excited about this!! More books on the screen, please!!
This might get me to revive my Netflix subscription!
Apparently, the show will focus more on dramatic situations/lines. Although those existed in the books, the tone wasn’t that most of the time. I confess I fear the adaptation will be too far from the books (probably will only use them as a starting point) and I already dread being disappointed.
Hopefully I won’t but I’m a pessimist.
This is so excitng. Hopefully this is just a start. I would love to see a historical mystery series picked up: C.S. Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr, Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily, Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell, Laurie R King’s Mary Russell or Ann Lee Huber’s Lady Darby series just to mention a few would be awesome to see as a tv show or miniseries.
I am so curious how they’ll make this a drama. I think it’ll end up being just ‘set in the bridgerton world’ as opposed to following the books faithfully. I’m excited but also cautious about this!
Shonda is no fool, netflix is the new empire. Her addicting talent will no doubt be brilliantly successful once again, can’t wait! Shonda’s female leads are in a word– mesmerizing, she takes female empowerment to the next level and I can’t get enough. I recently finished a book with an awesome female lead, Fortitude Rising by A.M. Bochnak. She’s new, but she’s proving to be a star in the making. Worth checking out! http://www.ambochnak.com
I love this! I can’t wait. I am such a sucker for tv/movies based on books, even though they nearly never live up to the book.
This is the kind of news that makes me want to buy the books before they get tie-in covers. Then I realize I would be buying ebooks and the cover change would be pushed on me anyway.
Julia Quinn’s Bridgertons kickstarted my now three years old romance-a-thon! Squee!
I AM SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED ABOUT THIS! A few years ago when going through a bad patch I binge read the entire Bridgerton saga back to back, and as I did I could see how they interconnected, who was where when, and shaping it into one-hour TV episodes in my head, and I could see so clearly how it would work. I mentioned this to Ms Quinn when I met her at RT Atlanta, and she kind of looked around and said, “Don’t tell anybody, but there’s a definite possibility that might happen.” So glad to hear it really is! As I told her, I’d watch it just to hear Mrs Featherington say “He had his mouth on your bubbies.” Her main concern was that people would assume that the Dowager Duchess was based on the Dowager from Downton Abbey, which we all know is NOT TRUE. Sigh. I may finally have to splurge for a NETFLIX subscription…
Hmmmm.
I’m going to be the Debi Downer and say I have reservations. I feel like I’m pretty much the only person in the world who isn’t a Shonda Rimes fan. I watched Grey’s for a few season and bailed when the ghost sex started. It seems like her original characters can NEVER be happy. The Bridgerton series has conflicts for sure, but overall it’s happy and not filled with angst.
I also have to wonder how Shonda will deal with characters that aren’t hers and come from an established universe. Frankly I don’t want to see any changes/updates/spins/etc.
I’m so excited!! I hope they keep it historical — and I’m open to any updating or multi-racial casting…as long as it’s still set during the Regency period – cuz hello: period costume heaven – Yes Please! Whatever happens we will always have the books to fall back in again and again! (Forever the optimist)
We don’t have streaming and I’ve never read Ms. Quinn’s books. I’m not a huge fan of books and shows that take place in the modern day and aren’t sci fi or fantasy related, so I haven’t seen much of Rhimes’s work either. (Other than when my favorite actor was in a handful of episodes on Grey’s.)
But if it’s historical and romance count me in. Should Netflix put it on DVD, yeah, I’ll check it out.
I just hope they have a big enough budget not to screw up the costumes and settings.
A lot of small budget regency movies fudge up the regency gowns and make them look like potato sacks. But I trust Netflix will allow a big budget. Hopefully, the costumes and settings will turn out as rich as Showtime’s Borgias.
I hope Desperate Duchesses is turned into a series too. It seems like that series was made for TV.
Ugh I’m sooo excited!! The only way I can keep myself sane is if I thrust this out of my mind until it comes out! The announcements were just made and they probably still have a while to go.
It’s one of 8series which she’s launching with Netflix after all.
LORD Please bless them with a fabulous costume designer!!
I hope either
Gabrielle Pescucci – The Borgias,
Micheal O’Connor – The Duchess,
Madeline Fontaine – Amazon’s Casanova(2015),
or Sandy Powell – The Young Victoria
work on this!
How the hell am I going to fall alseep tonight?
(wild Muppet arm flail) Yay! I hope it brings more readers to the joy of Regency romance!!!
I’ll confess to some nervousness, especially since it’ll be under Chris Van Dusen’s oversight. But, I am really excited to *finally* see a Regency series being adapted. With the popularity of Jane Austen adaptations for the last 40 years, I’ve wondered when someone would finally look for other material (though I confess I thought Georgette Heyer’s works would be adapted first). Whether this show is good or bad, I’m looking forward to it paving the way for more adaptions like it.
I am most excited to see how they deal with the intersecting timelines of the Colin/E/Francesca books, and to see Francesca’s story. I loved that book so much.
It would be fun to see racially diverse casting while keeping the Regency setting.
Excited and sold!
I’m scared… her shows kill people off. Happy that romance is getting a spotlight but still leery and skeptical.
More romance adaptions, yes please!!
This is completely bizarre to me. Like my brain thinks this is so weird, and Shonda Rhimes Bridgertons sounds like world salad to me. Why would Shonda Rimes want to make a miniseries based on the Bridgertons? It just seems so weird.
I wonder is she will make them comtemporaries? The Bridgertons/Quinn’s writing has been sort of contemprary/alt. history regency. I like the books individually, but find the family sort of annoying. I wonder how Shonda will take on the look a big family that loves each other/special snowflake of a family attitude?
I could see it going contemporary with Violet and Edmund adopting kids to increase diversity in the series.
I’ve also thought too, the Smith-Smythe quartet is set during the Bridgertons, if they have the rights to those books as well, they could really expand the story and tell all of the concurrent elements as they happened, rather than revealing them later.
Cautiously optimistic, would love to see some colour blind casting, the Regency period needs less whitewash.
I’d never heard of this series until reading the press release yesterday (I’m a huge Shonda fan) and I immediately purchased The Duke and I. Even though I have the occasional grumble about something being pure Austen, I am enjoying it immensely and stayed up half the night reading.
I do hope they’re able to make it diverse, although I’d hate to see it modernized. Either way, though, I’m excited. Whether you like Shonda’s style or not, the woman knows how to tell a story.
[…] Rimes will adapt the series, which has some Bridgertons fans worried (see the comments on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books post heralding the adaptation.) But if the streaming movie or series is true to the books, which are […]
[…] Rimes will adapt the series, which has some Bridgertons fans worried (see the comments on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books post heralding the adaptation.) But if the streaming movie or series is true to the books, which are […]
I want me some Francesca. Cautiously optimistic.