Netflix and Ryan Murphy’s ‘Monster’ Anthology to Focus on Menendez Brothers in Season 2

Rick Porter
·2 min read

Netflix and Ryan Murphy have found their next Monster — or rather, a pair of them.

The second installment of the anthology series from Murphy and Ian Brennan will focus on Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers convicted of murdering their parents, José and Kitty, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989. The umbrella title of the series will get pluralized, with the season going by Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Netflix also says it has “exclusive access” to the brothers for a forthcoming documentary.

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Following the runaway success of the first Monster, focused on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Netflix ordered two more installments and turned the series into an anthology that will tell “stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society.” The first season currently stands as Netflix’s third most popular English-language series ever of its first 28 days of release.

The Menendez brothers were tried twice for the murder of their parents, with the first resulting in deadlocked juries and the second in convictions for both brothers on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The brothers said in court that they had suffered lifelong abuse from their parents and shot them out of fear for their lives. They were each sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The Menendez case was a media sensation in the early 1990s and has been extensively (or exhaustively) covered in both fictionalized and documentary form ever since. Fox and CBS both aired TV movies about the murders in 1994, and Lifetime ran Menendez: Blood Brothers in 2017. The single season of Law & Order: True Crime on NBC also focused on the case, with Edie Falco starring as defense lawyer Leslie Abramson. Several true-crime shows have also profiled the brothers; Peacock’s upcoming documentary Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed features a former member of boy band Menudo, Roy Rosselló, claiming José Menendez sexually assaulted him when Rosselló was a teenager.

Murphy and Brennan executive produce the anthology series. Details on other writers and producers, as well as casting, will be announced later.

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