A few days ago, the future of award-winning director Ryan Murphy’s controversial Monster series was revealed, with its recently announced fourth season set to focus on Lizzie Borden. That is one of several projects Murphy is currently working on, and which has provided fans with a much-needed update. Another is the FX series adaptation of The Shards, which was first reported to be in the works in May with Kaia Gerber attached to star.
According to Variety, The Shards has been officially greenlit and has added a trio of actors to its cast, including a frequent Mike Flanagan collaborator, Igby Rigney. Rigney will play a young Bret Easton Ellis in the series, which is based on Ellis’ book of the same name. The actor is best known for having starred in Flanagan’s shows The Midnight Club, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher. His other credits include Grey’s Anatomy, The Sex Lives of College Girls, and Fast & Furious 9.
In addition to Rigney, Homer James Jigme Gere and Graham Campbell have been tapped to play Robert and Thom, respectively, marking their television debut. Murphy is executive producing via Ryan Murphy Productions, while Max Winkler is attached to direct and executive produce. Ellis is also an executive producer alongside Nick Hall, Kathleen McCaffrey, and Brian Young. 20th Television will produce, with Murphy under an overall deal at the studio.
‘The Shards’ Tells A Terrifying Tale of A Serial Killer on The Loose
As an adaptation of Ellis’ horror autofiction, The Shards highlights semi-autobiographical details from the author’s upbringing while following a fictional serial killer in 1980s Los Angeles. In it, 17-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student, Robert Mallory, arrives with a mysterious past. Robert ticks all the boxes as a stellar student and soon becomes a part of Bret’s close-knit circle, but he is shielding a secret from them. With that, Bret becomes obsessed and, as described by the book’s publisher, his obsession is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose. Trawler seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them, especially Bret, using “grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence.” The description continues:
“The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation.”
A release date has not been announced for Murphy’s The Shards adaptation.
via Collider