Netflix have played a huge part in the resurgence of the true crime genre over the last few years thanks to the success of shows like Making a Murderer, The Keepers, Evil Genius, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and even Tiger King, which was a crime story at its core. Fans can’t seem to get enough of them, and they’re regularly among the most popular titles on the platform.
The streaming service has also gotten into the Ryan Murphy business in a big way, with the prolific American Horror Story creator signing a huge first-look deal that’s already brought TV shows The Politician, Hollywood and Ratched, documentary A Secret Love and feature film The Boys in the Band since last year alone. Put the two together and success is virtually guaranteed, and that’s exactly what looks to be happening again following the announcement that Murphy is developing limited series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
The creator is drafting in many of his previous collaborators for the project including Glee‘s Ian Brennan and Pose‘s Janet Mock, while Lucifer veteran David McMillan and David Fincher’s Mindhunter protege Carl Franklin will direct a handful of episodes each when production kicks off next January. So far, the only talent attached is veteran character actor Richard Jenkins as Dahmer’s father, but that’ll change shortly enough given how soon Monster is set to head in front of cameras.
Of course, Jeffrey Dahmer is one of history’s most notorious serial killers and could be the subject of a fascinating if difficult to watch limited series, but there’s always the chance that Murphy’s self-indulgence will get the better of him as it frequently tends to do and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story will be his latest effort to favor style over substance. For now, though, we’ll remain cautiously optimistic.
