Ryan Murphy’s The Shards is definitely not a limited series, its executive producers have revealed.
Speaking exclusively to Radio Times, executive producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson, the pair behind the Hunger Games films and Murphy’s own Feud, said the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s 2021 novel deliberately slows down and expands its source material to sustain an ongoing story.
The nine-episode drama arrives on Disney+ in the UK on Wednesday 6 August 2026, with a double-bill release followed by weekly single episodes.
As with Ellis’s acclaimed novel, in early-1980s Los Angeles, The Shards follows a group of privileged seniors at an elite prep school as they navigate all the dramas of high school, while a serial killer known as the Trawler stalks the city’s young people.
At its centre is a fictionalised author avatar in aspiring writer Bret, played by Midnight Mass actor Igby Rigney, who grows convinced that the magnetic new student Robert Mallory – played by Richard Gere’s son and Euphoria star Homer Gere – is connected to the brutal killings after they share an unnerving first encounter at a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
Igby Rigney portrays protagonist Bret in FX’s The Shards. Ray Mickshaw/FX.
Speaking candidly about how they got involved with the series, Simpson said he and Jacobson were drawn to the project partly out of professional envy, having watched the rights move before they could pounce.
“We were very jealous because HBO had actually optioned it while it was being done as a podcast by Bret Easton Ellis,” he said, adding: “When that came out of option, and FX and Ryan pursued it, they asked us to join. So it was a very easy ‘yes’, because we were already incredibly jealous somebody else might make it.”
Of course, Ellis’s oeuvre is still prime real estate for Hollywood, with Luca Guadagnino also set to adapt the author’s iconic American Psycho for the big screen once again.
With The Shards, however, Jacobson, who grew up in the serial-killer-dominated years of 1980s Los Angeles, said the book’s world lent itself naturally to returning characters in a series rather than a film.
“[Bret] creates characters who you do want to spend time with,” she said, pointing to “the nostalgia that young people have for a time that they haven’t lived in” and the “freedom, independence, invisibility, kind of a fake adulthood” enjoyed by wealthy teenagers with largely absent parents.
The hidden sexuality of Bret (Igby Rigney, left) and his struggles with girlfriend Debbie (Hayes Warner, right) are at the centre of much drama. Ray Mickshaw/FX
Central to that idea, she added, is Bret’s fear of his identity and sexuality being outed: “This moment in your youth where you both are fully feeling the awakening of yourself as an adult sexual being, and you’re utterly terrified that anybody will find out what you really want.”
In casting these roles, Simpson said they followed the model of the pair’s earlier Murphy collaborations, mixing fresh faces with established names. Many of the young male actors read for multiple roles before the ensemble settled into place, and Rigney landed the lead role of Bret once Murphy heard him deliver Ellis’s distinctive voiceover.
“As soon as we heard Igby reading those lines and doing the voiceover, we knew it was him,” Simpson concluded.
Kaia Gerber was the first cast in the series, taking on the role of Susan Reynolds. Pari Dukovic/FX
Meanwhile, Hollywood darling and Cindy Crawford’s daughter, Kaia Gerber, cast as Susan Reynolds, was the best-known of the younger performers and was signed earliest, but the wider group came together through repeated mix-and-match readings.
The line-up also includes up-and-comers with stage star Graham Campbell as Susan’s boyfriend Thom Wright and pop music artist Hayes Warner as wild child Debbie Schaffer, alongside more familiar names in American Beauty’s Wes Bentley and Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood as Debbie’s dysfunctional parents, Terry and Liz Schaffer. Both Bentley and Wood had worked with Murphy before, the former prolifically across American Horror Story and the latter in his film Running with Scissors.
Jacobson said Murphy’s industry reach allowed the production to break out new talent while anchoring them opposite such award-winning actors.
American Beauty star Wes Bentley as unnerving Terry Schaffer. Pari Dukovic/FX
“You’re able to land a Wes or an Evan Rachel Wood, and to give these young actors some real meat on the bone in terms of who they’re going up against,” she commented.
Meanwhile, Ellis himself, whose novels also include Less Than Zero (which, as part of the autofiction of The Shards, is namedropped here), wrote a draft of the early scripts before Murphy took the reins, retaining his author status as the team adapted the book and shared a co-credit with Murphy on the opening two episodes.
“Bret really took the approach of, I’m handing over my book to Ryan,” Simpson said, adding that Ellis had “always wanted it to be an ongoing series”.
Of course, Jacobson acknowledged that the adaptation adds storylines to take proceedings beyond the events of the novel, including “a bit of soap opera to keep the characters engaged”.
Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood as depressed Liz Schaffer in The Shards. Pari Dukovic/FX
In fact, Easton Ellis fans can expect additional characters, mysteries, gossip – and dancing!
Simpson added that, “It has to give you the feeling you had when you read the book, and hopefully we’ve captured the feeling you had when you read the book.”
Yet, Jacobson insists that any changes stay true to the book’s themes, particularly Bret’s status as an unreliable narrator and the disruption caused by the arrival of the enigmatic but charming Robert Mallory.
“Robert is like the stranger who arrives in the royal court and upends all of the power dynamics,” she surmises of Gere’s cool character.
In addition to the plot mechanics, there is, of course, the show’s distinct visual identity, soundscape, and ability to transport the viewer to a specific place and time.
The arrival of Robert Mallory (Homer Gere) is the catalyst for much of the series. FX
Simpson frames the show’s heightened style as a deliberate evocation of memory.
“Ryan has created a show that is vivid, literally incredibly vivid,” notes the executive producer. “The music is intense, the colours are bright, and hopefully that will give you the same feeling you had when you read the book.”
So how long will the show last for?
Getting more specific about the show’s future and the prospect of additional seasons, Simpson noted that the novel covers only two months and that the series has adapted just part of that timeline.
“We’re certainly set up to continue on through their senior year,” he teased. “Like any TV show, hoping people engaged, we’re ready to give them more.”
Before this interview, Disney unveiled the first-look trailer in July, teasing the sex, drugs and menace of Ellis’s Los Angeles ahead of the premiere episodes. You can watch the latest trailer below.
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Finally, Simpson and Jacobson also confirmed a busy slate beyond The Shards, including the final stages of the next Hunger Games film and work on a second season of Murphy’s All’s Fair.
“Glenn Close is in both. So we’ve had a big Glenn Close year,” noted Jacobson.
Reader, may we all have such a year.
The Shards is available to watch on Disney+ from Wednesday 6 August 2026 with a double bill, then episodes weekly. You can sign up to Disney+ from £4.99 a month.
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