‘FBoy Island’ Lands at The CW After Max Cancellation

Jackie Strause
·4 min read
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FBoy Island is moving locations.

The reality dating competition series has been picked up for a third season by The CW after its cancellation at Max with returning host Nikki Glaser.

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The franchise also announces the new spinoff series FGirl Island, also hosted by Glaser — a seed that had been planted by creator Elan Gale when he launched the series (more on that below).

Both unscripted series go into production back-to-back this summer, with FBoy airing in the fall of 2023 and FGirl slated for a midseason debut.

“With its innovative and modern twist on the reality dating genre, incredibly talented host Nikki Glaser, and truly unforgettable title, FBoy Island on The CW is a perfect match,” said Heather Olander, head of unscripted programming at The CW Network, in a statement. “Along with our partners at STXtelevision, we look forward to growing the franchise on The CW with the gender-flipping spinoff FGirl Island and cannot wait to introduce the next generation of F-boys and F-girls to existing fans as well as a new broadcast audience.”

Glaser added: “I’m so damn excited that my favorite reality TV show is coming back. It’s icing on the cake that I get to host it again. I hope I forget everything that happens while I make the show so that I can relive it all when it airs. I couldn’t be prouder to have my name on such a hilarious, captivating and ridiculous show.”

After two seasons, FBoy Island was canceled late 2022 at then-HBO Max (which was recently relaunched as Max), an unscripted casualty following content changes amid the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The streamer did not provide viewership numbers.

Produced by STXtelevision and Gale (The Bachelor franchise), FBoy Island follows three women who move to a tropical paradise where they’re joined by 26 men — 13 self-proclaimed “Nice Guys” looking for love, and 13 self-proclaimed “FBoys,” there to compete for cold, hard cash. The women will navigate the dating pool together with the hope of finding a lasting love connection. By the finale, all will be revealed: who is a Nice Guy, who is an FBoy, who the women ultimately choose, and who walks away with the prize money.

The reality TV social experiment asks: Can FBoys truly reform or do Nice Guys always finish last?

FGirl Island then switches genders, with three men trying to identify 24 women as either womanizers (“FGirls”) or seeking a serious relationship (“Nice Girls”).

The unscripted series launched in 2021 after filming in a pandemic-era bubble on the Cayman Islands and was filled with twists amid the team’s goal to subvert reality audience expectations. At the time, Gale and fellow reality veteran and showrunner Sam Dean (Love Is Blind, Married at First Sight) shared their hopes about turning their big swing into a franchise.

“Maybe there will be a woman one day who desperately wants a fuckboy. I’m looking forward to fuckboy weddings, fuckboy babies,” Gale told The Hollywood Reporter.

Dean added, “I would love it to be a franchise. It is totally the most modern expression of a dating show that we have for that age group at the moment and I would love it to branch out. Would the audience like to see more women and would people be interested in seeing an FGirl Island? This show is a great conversation-starter and I think FGirl Island would probably be even more of a conversation-starter. It would be really fascinating to turn it around and see what that looks like and what that means. And for women who identify as that, what would their characteristics be? I would find that really fascinating.”

To date, FBoy Island has original local formats in Sweden, Spain, Holland, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, Portugal and the U.K. “The best in the FBoy and FGirl Island universe is yet to come,” said Jason Goldberg, CCO of STX Digital/New Media Group and Alternative Content.

FBoy Island and FGirl Island are produced by STXtelevision. The series was created by Gale who is executive producing for TheYearOfElan Productions alongside Jason Goldberg for STXtelevision, Glaser, Noah Fogelson and Bob Simonds.

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