Netflix has ordered docuseries “Worst Ex Ever” from Blumhouse Television, marking an expansion of the studio’s “Worst Roommate Ever” series into a franchise.
Premiering August 14, the first season of the new show from Jason Blum’s horror-focused studio, best known for its film franchises including “Insidious,” “M3GAN”, Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Black Phone and many more will consist of four hour-long episodes.
Per the show’s description, “From the creators of the global phenomenon ‘Worst Roommate Ever’ comes ‘Worst Ex Ever.’ The new format – built around the universal feeling of wondering how much you really know about your partner – brings you more shocking tales of betrayal, violence, and deceit. Composed of compelling testimonials, bodycam footage and animated reenactments, ‘Worst Ex Ever’ reveals the disturbing stories of monstrous past relationships.”
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“Worst Ex Ever” is executive produced by Blum, Chris McCumber, Gretchen Palek, Jordana Hochman and Cynthia Childs. Childs also directed the series. The show hails from Blumhouse Television and ITV America.
“Worst Roommate Ever” debuted in March 2022, with its second season launching June 26. Both batches of episodes ranked in Netflix’s weekly global Top 10 English-language TV series list, as well as in the Top 10 TV lists in more than 75 countries. The series order for “Worst Ex Ever” marks the first franchise for Blumhouse TV.
“After the success of ‘Roommate,’ we asked, what could a new series be to start the franchise? And we really felt like, what was more relatable than exes?” Gretchen Palek, head of alternative TV programming at Blumhouse TV, told PvNew.
Though the series will launch at a time when “bad exes” are a trending topic across social media — most notably through TikTok star Reesa Teesa’s viral multipart “Who TF Did I Marry?” video series in February — Palek says those stories, and Reesa Teesa’s in particular, aren’t what inspired “Worst Ex Ever,” which went into pre-production a year and a half ago.
“I love mining social media for those types of trends, but we really did feel like ‘Roommate’ resonated because of the universal relatability. And we do feel like most people feel their ex is bad — but in our series, our exes really are the absolute worst,” Palek said. “That’s why we leaned into it. But I think it does not hurt across the board that on social a lot of people are talking about that. I know the story you’re referring to in particular, and I was fascinated by it.”
While she needs to remain tight-lipped on the “handful of other projects” Blumhouse TV has in the works in the unscripted space for now, she was able to tease one upcoming project: “We have a very unexpected competition format that will launch this Halloween, fronted by someone that our fans are going to be very familiar with. It’s very exciting and stretches us.”
Watch the trailer for “Worst Ex Ever” below.
