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The Shards seems like the perfect Ryan Murphy show: A coming-of-age story set in early 1980s Los Angeles where beautiful, affluent teens are being hunted by a serial killer. But this story is personal.
Murphy, now a father of three, says he first read Bret Easton Ellis‘ 2023 autofiction horror novel of the same name, of which the FX show is based, right when it came out. HBO was first to develop the book, but that adaptation fell through. That’s when Murphy swooped in.
“I always wanted to do something adapting Bret’s work,” the prolific creator behind American Horror Story, Love Story, Glee and many more series tells The Hollywood Reporter.
For Murphy, 1981 was a seminal year. Like the characters in his TV adaptation, it was a year of firsts. Every reference in the book felt familiar, from the clothes to the music to the code-switching from the protagonist based on Ellis. “I came from that place of telling Bret: ‘I get it. I lived it.’ I guess it worked, because he let me have the rights,” Murphy recalls with a laugh.
