\n<\/p>\n
In an industry as young as streaming, the good old days seem like yesterday. Just five years ago, Netflix handed Ryan Murphy<\/strong> a deal reportedly worth something like $300 million to leave his longtime home at Fox. On the heels of a similarly eye-popping Shonda Rhimes<\/strong> deal, the high-flying disrupter offered the so-called enfant terrible<\/em> of television near carte blanche to make the kinds of shows\u2014American Horror Story<\/em>, Nip\/Tuck<\/em>\u2014that had worked so well for FX. But now, after the creator of Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story<\/em>, seems to have finally found his groove, Bloomberg<\/a> is reporting that he plans to move his business to Disney to reunite with the former Fox executives who presided over his biggest hits.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a shocking move given that Murphy has continued to produce shows for Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden<\/strong>\u2014a close personal friend and godmother to his two children\u2014and FX chairman John Landgraf<\/strong>, who both moved to Disney after it acquired most of the Fox assets in 2019. Back in 2018, Murphy told<\/a> The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> that Fox simply couldn\u2019t match Netflix\u2019s offer. \u201cLooking back, I honestly feel that had they come in with a number that had been [closer to his expectations]\u2026I would\u2019ve gone there,\u201d he said. Fox denied Murphy\u2019s version of events at the time. Disney and Netflix declined to comment for this story. A representative for Murphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Murphy\u2019s first three series for Netflix\u2014The Politician<\/em>, Hollywood<\/em>, and Ratched<\/em>\u2014failed to ignite the zeitgeist. That seemed even more glaring after Rhimes\u2019s first show for the streamer, Bridgerton<\/em>, was an instant smash. Bloomberg reports that Murphy has been negotiating a new deal with Disney over the past year, even as he found success at Netflix. Last fall, Dahmer<\/em> surged to the top of the streamer\u2019s most-watched series list. It\u2019s currently the third most popular English-language series of all time for Netflix\u2014another recent Murphy show, The Watcher<\/em>, holds the No. 10 spot\u2014and is expected to do well at the Emmys. Outside of nods for documentary and music supervision, Murphy has not received any nominations from the Television Academy for his Netflix output. In the same timeframe, he\u2019s still earned major Emmy recognition for his FX series, American Crime Story<\/em> and Pose<\/em>.<\/p>\n In terms of optics, it\u2019s not ideal for Netflix to lose one of its most prolific creatives to rival Disney, but the streamer won\u2019t be out of the Murphy business entirely. He\u2019s expected to continue working on the shows that he developed for Netflix, only now the streamer won\u2019t have to give him such a heady deal. (Monster<\/em> will return with a second season focused on the M\u00e9nendez brothers, and The Watcher<\/em> has been renewed.) The market has cooled considerably on high-priced talent deals in recent years as streaming has struggled.<\/p>\n Murphy\u2019s proven track record at Fox should give Disney confidence that tying him down to a new deal will pay off even as the company looks to cut billions of dollars in costs and, like the rest of Hollywood, remains at a production standstill due to the ongoing writers strike. Bloomberg<\/em> cites unnamed sources in reporting that the bulk of the potential Disney\/Murphy deal was worked out prior to the WGA strike\u2019s launch in May, and that nothing has been finalized as of yet. As studios continue to grapple with rapidly changing economics in the industry\u2014and in some cases abruptly alter<\/a> their development plans\u2014the landscape in Hollywood remains cloudy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n