Hulu is finalizing a straight-to-series order for Bachelorette Weekend (working title), a murder-mystery thriller that gives Kylie Jenner her first major scripted role. Jenner plays the bride who winds up murdered in the pool, and the series pieces together the events that led to the killing as her closest girlfriends all become suspects.
Jenner and Kim Kardashian executive produce. Lauren Oliver created the series and wrote the adaptation, based on an unpublished Flora Collins book developed through Oliver’s StoryGiants. Kapital Entertainment is the lead studio alongside 20th Television. Hulu declined comment.
Why this is more than celebrity casting
The order extends the Kardashian-Jenner move from unscripted Hulu content into scripted drama. Kim Kardashian already stars in and executive produces the Hulu legal drama All’s Fair. The family’s Hulu reality series The Kardashians returns for Season 8 on Oct. 8, so Bachelorette Weekend would sit next to an audience Hulu already knows.
The project reached Hulu through Kardashian’s first-look deal at 20th Television. According to Deadline, the spec script was sent to Kardashian, who saw it as a starring vehicle for Jenner and passed it on. The package was then pitched to Hulu and bought preemptively.
The scripted interest has been building. Jenner made a buzzy cameo in Charli XCX’s A24 film The Moment and has been a fixture in film circles while attending events with partner Timothée Chalamet. Kardashian has her own slate, including Hulu’s All’s Fair, the upcoming Netflix movie The Fifth Wheel, and executive-producing roles on Netflix’s Calabasas and Paramount+’s Team Moms: Baseball.
The deal mechanics
- Order: straight-to-series, still being negotiated.
- Genre: thriller drama, working title Bachelorette Weekend.
- Studios: Kapital Entertainment and 20th Television.
- Key EPs: Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Lauren Oliver, Aaron Kaplan; Jaiden Kaplan co-executive produces.
A straight-to-series order commits the platform to a full season without testing a pilot first. That is a larger upfront bet than a pilot order and a signal of confidence in a known name, a pre-sold format and a high-concept murder hook.
Kapital already has two other Hulu dramas in the works, You Deserve To Know and What Remains, and its two One Mile movies starring Ryan Phillippe are currently No. 1 and No. 2 on Paramount+’s daily chart. That gives the producer extra streaming momentum heading into the Hulu negotiations.
What to watch
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the test is sampling versus retention. A reality and social following can drive opening-week tune-in, but a murder mystery has to hold that audience on story, not just on star power. The straight-to-series order is still being negotiated, so the final size and positioning will reveal how strongly Hulu wants the package.
Creator Lauren Oliver also brings adaptation experience from her YA bestsellers; her psychological thriller The Sleepwalker is in feature development at Amazon/MGM. That book-to-screen packaging is central to this deal, not an afterthought.
Source: Deadline
