Just as Entertainment Weekly shuts down print, Netflix asks producer Shonda Rhimes hard-hitting questions, ‘When did you first know “Bridgerton” would be a global phenomenon?’
As Inventing Anna continues to rank in Netflix’s top 10, Shondaland has set another scripted original series at the streaming giant. Shonda Rhimes and her longtime Shondaland partner Betsy Beers will executive produce The Residence, a mystery drama that has been ordered straight to series. The drama will use Kate Anderson Brower’s book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, as a jumping off point to tell a new murder-mystery story.
The new Netflix series Bridgerton joins a tiny but growing handful of prestige shows adapted from mass-market romance books. What took so long?
Exclusives
The streaming service represents “an open road. I love the creative freedom that’s available there,” Rhimes said.
Why would Shonda Rhimes, the star writer of ABC’s primetime lineup for the last decade and the creator behind shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, want to leave network TV? Her move to Netflix is the clearest sign of a seismic shift in the television world, where traditional metrics of success like massive ratings, syndication deals, and prime-time slots matter less, and greater artistic independence is the ultimate goal.
The ABC network three years ago handed its most lucrative night of the week — Thursday — to its most prolific producer, Shonda Rhimes. ABC grouped three Rhimes-produced shows together and promoted the bloc as “Thank God It’s Thursday.” So Netflix’s announcement late Sunday that Rhimes would be moving her Shondaland production company to the streaming service was a gut punch to ABC. The network has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars over the years in advertising revenue and foreign distribution fees from the sale of Rhimes’ shows.
The prolific showrunner behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and more has left her longtime home at ABC Studios for the streaming giant. Under the multiple-year deal, Rhimes and her Shondaland banner will create and produce new projects for the streaming giant. Rhimes’ longtime producing partner Betsy Beers will continue to head Shondaland in the move to Netflix. Under what is said to be a rich four-year pact, Rhimes is expected to score a percentage of the back-end on programming she creates for Netflix.
NEW YORK (AP) — TV producer Shonda Rhimes didn’t get the president she wanted in the recent election, but she’ll be receiving a special honor from the president she created […]
The showrunner of ABC’s entire Thursday primetime programming block received accolades from the National Association of Broadcasters on Monday, at a luncheon that honored diversity by moving the conversation forward from honoring diversity. “Everyone makes a big deal about how I broke all these barriers in terms of diversity, so I know that I have to talk about it,” Rhimes said in accepting her induction into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame. So Rhimes took a few minutes to address — and dismiss — the conversation that has become an increasingly frustrating part of her media presence.
A column about pilot season’s “ethnic castings” from a trade publication caused a stir Tuesday night over claims that white actors are being short-changed by TV’s increasing diversity push. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder executive producer Shonda Rhimes was among those who blasted the controversial Deadline column “Pilots 2015: The Year Of Ethnic Castings — About Time Or Too Much Of Good Thing?” and called the story “ignorant.”
Rhimes is among the few remaining bona fide network hitmakers; her pull at ABC is matched only by Chuck Lorre, with his three sitcoms at CBS, or Seth MacFarlane, with his three animated shows at Fox. Before Scandal, Rhimes created the hit medical drama Grey’s Anatomy and, later, the sudsier Grey’s spinoff, Private Practice, which ended this past January after a six-year run.
