Ryan Murphy Talks String of Hit Series and the Menendez Moment: “There’s Room for All Points of View”
Ryan Murphy has a lot to celebrate. He pulled off a feat that no other producer has yet — he launched six shows in 10 days, and all of them have become hits on their respective platforms.
“I don’t know how I did it, to be honest, because I literally collapsed last night,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, following a whirlwind month of press where he launched FX‘s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, FX’s Grotesquerie and ABC’s Doctor Odyssey, along with returning series 911 on ABC and 911: Lone Star at Fox. “The fact that they are all hits and all hit No. 1 upon release, and all continue to do very well on the various platforms, I’m grateful. I’m grateful to all the people who work at my company, because we’ve all been working our asses off for almost 18 months to make this happen.”
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Monsters stayed at No. 1 on Netflix’s global TV charts for a second straight week, earning 19.5 million views (defined as total viewing time divided by running time) and was a top 10 show for the streamer in 89 countries. The show has 31.8 million views since its Sept. 19 release, according to Netflix’s figures.
On ABC, 911 (4.93 million viewers) and new series Doctor Odyssey (4.23 million) premiered as the network’s No. 1 and No. 3 shows of the week in total viewers (excluding sports). Doctor Odyssey was ABC’s most watched drama series premiere since Big Sky in 2020, and three days of cross-platform viewing pushed its total to 7.59 million. The final season of 911: Lone Star, meanwhile, opened to 4.9 million multiplatform viewers on Fox, the network’s highest nonsports total of the week.
Doctor Odyssey, 911 and the two FX shows have all been fixtures in Hulu’s onscreen top 15 lists since their premieres.
Below, Murphy talks to THR about those staggering statistics while also weighing in on the massive reaction to Monsters — sharing how he really feels about the Menendez brothers and why he approved of Netflix launching a participatory documentary with the brothers, which hits the streamer this weekend — as well as which shows from the Murphy canon he will launch next.
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You launched six new series over the past 10 days. I don’t think anyone has ever done that before.
I don’t think so. I’m grateful because everything lined up — it couldn’t have gone better. That’s what I marvel at. I’ve been working on a lot of these things for two or three years, but because of the strike and different orders — how things are reported and when things need to hit — they were all suggested to run at that date. And I thought, “Well that’s kind of fun,” because I don’t think anyone has done that and, more than that, I like the energy of it. So much creativity, so much work from our brand at once. All the shows are very different, but they have the same DNA.
When they all come out together, you have to then promote the shows all at once. How do you divide your attention among your babies in this moment?
I have really good practice because I’m a father of three. I’ve learned how to love all of them in equal measure. (Laughs.) There’s always a fire of the day that you have to put out, when you have this many shows in production: “OK, what’s the problem to deal with today?” But I love the energy of it. The shows are all so different. One is a true crime, one is a sports thing, one is a horror show out of my brain, one is a tribute to the ABC shows of my youth. It’s all very different, and I’ve loved working on all of them. I’m so proud of the cast and crews. But I don’t know how I did it, to be honest, because I literally collapsed last night. I was so tired and my partner, David [Miller], was like, “Well, no shit you’re tired.” So, I’m taking my vitamins today.
Will you ever repeat this type of rollout again?
I probably would not do it again. The thing that I forgot is, not only do you have to make the shows great and try to make them successful, you also have to deal with the marketing and advertising. I’m a person at my company who single-handedly does that with all of my network partners. Now we have to sell them. We have to sing for our supper. So, I don’t know. I say no, I probably would not have six shows come out in a month again. But maybe next time I’ll try for eight! I have no idea. But, my gut says no. When we were heading toward this run, everyone was like, “Are you sure you can do this?” And I said yes. So, I’m glad it happened.
There has been such a reaction to Monsters. Now that you have an idea of how people are consuming the series on Netflix, are you confident that, by the show’s end, for the people who watch all the way through, the show delivered on what you set out to do?
Yes, 100 percent. Ian [Brennan, co-creator] and I set out to do exactly what we wanted to do. And I’ll tell you my thoughts about the Menendez brothers. The Menendez brothers should be sending me flowers. They haven’t had so much attention in 30 years. And it’s gotten the attention of not only this country, but all over the world. There’s sort of an outpouring of interest in their lives and in the case. I know for a fact that many people have offered to help them because of the interest of my show and what we did. There is no world that we live in where the Menendez brothers or their wives or lawyers would say, “You know what, that was a wonderful, accurate depiction of our clients.” That was never going to happen, and I wasn’t interested in that happening.
The thing that the Menendez brothers and their people neglect is that we were telling a story that was a very broad canvas. We were telling the story of Dominick Dunne [played by Nathan Lane], of Leslie Abramson [played by Ari Graynor]. We were also telling the story of the parents [José and Kitty Menendez, played by Javier Bardem and Chlo? Sevigny], who they blew their heads off; we were also telling their story. We had an obligation to so many people, not just to Erik and Lyle. But that’s what I find so fascinating; that they’re playing the victim card right now — “poor, pitiful us” — which I find reprehensible and disgusting.
I also think that two things can be true at the same time. I think they could have killed their parents, and also had been abused. They could have been of ambiguous moral character as young people, and be rehabilitated now. So I think that story is complicated. I’m thrilled with the reaction to it. I’m really thrilled with how people are responding to the performances, particularly of Cooper [Koch] and Nicholas [Alexander Chavez], who really killed themselves to do justice to those boys. I think Cooper and Nicholas are much more empathetic toward the Menendez brothers than I am, but good. There’s room for all points of view.
Netflix announced the Menendez Brothers documentary shortly after Monsters released, which has the brothers participating with new audio interviews. Do you view these as complementary viewing, and do you plan to watch the documentary?
I’m not going to watch it, because I’m not interested in anything else about the Menendez brothers. I don’t want to watch the documentary. I have no interest in meeting them. I have no interest in talking to their lawyers or their wives. I’ve just sort of done it, because I was telling a bigger story, a cultural story. I wasn’t doing a biography of them. I was telling a story about a certain place and time. Listen, I’m sure they will be thrilled with that documentary, because a lot of it is supposedly in their own voices. Apparently there’s new information that they claim, including about the sexual abuse from their mother, who they claimed sexually abused them.
The story has always fascinated people, including myself, because we’ll never really know what happened. It is an unknowable mystery. There were four people involved in that story and two of them were shot in the face. So I think that the public’s fascination is limitless, because there’s no answer. We will never know if they told the truth, we will never know if they were sexually abused for sure. We will never know if the parents were the monsters.
But, in the case of Netflix, they’ve been such great partners. They released the documentary on Jeffrey Dahmer a couple of weeks after [Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story] came out. And I think these pieces of programming can wonderfully live hand in hand. Of course, they asked me about my opinions, and I approved of it, and I said yes. It’s a different point of view of an unknowable story that people have a real degree of interest in, because I actually think it forces you to look at your own relationships with your own parents, with yourselves. There’s something deeper about the Menendez brothers’ story that is very interesting. So I say, go for it.
Next year, we’re doing the Ed Gein story [starring Charlie Hunnam as the serial murderer], which is a very different Monster. But if they want to have a documentary on the Ed Gein case? Great. I love how Netflix does that.
You sound like you’ve cleansed yourself of the Menendez story now that it’s released, and you are moving on to your next projects.
I really did say everything I had to say about them, and there’s nothing they can tell me that I feel I don’t know. I know what their perspective is. I know what they’re going to say. It’s what they’ve always said; I don’t know if it’s the truth. What I really wanted to do, we did. I was never that interested in the Menendez brothers. What I was interested in was the topic of sexual abuse. I was interested in, specifically, the topic of male sexual abuse, and I wanted to talk about it. It’s something in our culture we rarely talk about. I did think it was outrageous during that [Menendez] trial that so many men, particularly in the second trial, felt there was no such thing as male sexual abuse. That was an outrage. I was interested in that. And I know that’s launched a lot of conversations. In my own life, so many people have reached out to me who I didn’t even know were sexually abused. Our show gave them a way to have a conversation. And for that, I am tremendously proud.
A habeas corpus petition was filed in 2023 to get their sentences reduced and there is new evidence, some of which you mentioned. Do you think there could be a new trial? [Update: After this story published, L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón announced the Menendez case was under review for possible resentencing following the new evidence; Murphy reacted to that here.]
I think if there is new evidence, it should be examined. I don’t think the second trial was fair. We say this in the show: What was happening in Los Angeles was so explosive after the L.A. riots and after O.J. [Simpson], and I think those brothers were probably never going to be given their fair day in court. So I actually think if there is new evidence, it should be examined. I don’t know, even if you are sexually abused, does that give you the right to murder your parents? That’s the bigger question. That’s for other people to decide. I know a lot of people who were sexually abused who didn’t blow their parents’ heads off. I think it’s a very complicated question: Should the new evidence be looked at? Does that forgive what they did? I don’t know. That’s for other people to decide.
What shows are you filming next, and what shows will be coming out next from you?
I start directing a show I’m really excited about this Friday — All’s Fair with Kim Kardashian, Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, Sarah Paulson and Niecy Nash. That will probably be the next show to come out, next fall. That starts shooting this week. Then I finish directing that and I go off to New York and Europe to work with Evan Peters, Jeremy Pope, Anthony Ramos and Ashton Kutcher on The Beauty. After that, I start the Carolyn Bessette-JFK love story [for American Love Story at FX]. We’re going to start shooting that in the spring. So I’m booked and blessed, as they say. But I love what I do, so why wouldn’t I do it? I really love it. And next, American Horror Stories comes out in October, so I’ve had a very bountiful harvest.
When is the next season of American Horror Story coming?
You know, that’s an interesting question. I was talking to Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters about that the other day, so maybe sooner than you think.
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