Hulu Orders Nine Perfect Strangers Series, Ties Up with Chrissy Teigen

Hulu, which today revealed that its U.S. customer base has exceeded 28 million subs, is expanding its content offering with new original programming and exclusive talent deals.

In an expanded partnership, Marvel Television will bring two new live-action series to Hulu from the Marvel Universe. Marvel’s Ghost Rider and Marvel’s Helstrom are slated to debut on Hulu in 2020. Both series are co-productions with Marvel Television and ABC Signature Studios and join the upcoming season three of Marvel’s Runaways and the recently announced adult animated series based on the popular Marvel Television characters such as Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K, Marvel’s Hit-Monkey, Marvel’s Tigra & Dazzler Show and Marvel’s Howard The Duck, which will culminate in a special event, Marvel’s The Offenders.

In a new multiyear, multi-show partnership, Hulu will team up with Vox Media Studios, David Chang’s Majordomo Media and Chrissy Teigen’s Suit & Thai Productions to develop and produce a slate of food-centric programming for the platform. Among the first projects being produced through this new partnership is a cooking show featuring Chang and Teigen tentatively titled Family Style, which will look at the ways in which people express their love for friends and family by cooking and eating together. Also in the pipeline is a documentary series tentatively titled Eater’s Guide to the World, which taps into Eater’s knowledge of the most interesting and delicious restaurants on the planet.

Additionally, Teigen signed a separate deal with Hulu to develop original content for the platform. Under a new pact, she and her Suit & Thai Productions company will curate and produce original content, which could range from scripted drama series to original talk shows.

Nicole Kidman and Bruna Papandrea will adapt the latest book by New York Times best-selling author Liane Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers, for Hulu via their respective production companies, Blossom Films and Made Up Stories. David E. Kelley and John Henry Butterworth will co-showrun and co-write the series. The drama takes place at a boutique health-and-wellness resort that promises healing and transformation as nine stressed city dwellers try to get on a path to a better way of living. Watching over them during this ten-day retreat is the resort’s director Masha (played by Kidman), a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their tired minds and bodies. However, these nine “perfect” strangers have no idea what is about to hit them.

Hulu is increasing its investment in non-intrusive ad formats with the industry’s first “binge advertising experience.” The new format will make it possible for marketers to target binge-viewers with a creative experience that is situationally relevant to their viewing behavior.

The platform has ordered The Dropout, a limited series executive produced and starring Kate McKinnon, inspired by the ABC News podcast on the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos. The series will explore what caused the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, once heralded as “the next Steve Jobs,” to lose everything in the blink of an eye.

Following the success of Hulu’s 2019 new comedy slate, the platform has ordered second seasons of Pen15, Ramy and, as previously announced, Shrill.

“In today’s direct-to-consumer world, viewers are demanding better when it comes to TV—from the user experience to their content choices to the advertising,” said Hulu CEO Randy Freer. “Hulu’s continued growth, as well as the shows and initiatives announced today, reflect our deep investment in product, programming, brand, customer experience and business strategy to ensure that with Hulu, consumers can connect with the stories they love, at the right time and price, on any device.”