Ryan Murphy has said he may not be done with the Menéndez brothers’ story after all.
The latest season of the TV super-producer’s true crime series Monsters centres around Erik and Lyle Menéndez, who are both serving life sentences for killing their parents in the late 1980s.
At the time, the siblings claimed they were acting in self-defence after years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, while the prosecution argued that the Menéndez brothers’ motivations were financial.
Since its release last month, the show has been hugely controversial, but has pulled in viewers for Netflix, where it hasn’t budged from the top of the platform’s most-watched shows chart.
Although the Emmy winner recently told The Hollywood Reporter he was “not interested in anything else about the Menéndez brothers”, the news that the pair will receive a new hearing next month has apparently changed his mind somewhat.
He told Variety: “I think what I would be interested in doing, if Nicholas [Alexander Chavez] and Cooper [Koch] would agree to do it, is maybe one or two episodes that continue the story.”
He’s also faced criticism for his own comments about the Menéndez brothers, and doubled down on his stance during a Hollywood Reporter interview published this week.
“I’ll tell you my thoughts about the Menéndez brothers,” he said. “The Menéndez brothers should be sending me flowers. They haven’t had so much attention in 30 years. And it’s gotten the attention of not only this country, but all over the world.
“There’s sort of an outpouring of interest in their lives and in the case. I know for a fact that many people have offered to help them because of the interest of my show and what we did.”
He added: “The thing that the Menéndez brothers and their people neglect is that we were telling a story that was a very broad canvas.
“We were telling the story of Dominick Dunne, of Leslie Abramson. We were also telling the story of the parents, who they blew their heads off; we were also telling their story. We had an obligation to so many people, not just to Erik and Lyle. But that’s what I find so fascinating; that they’re playing the victim card right now – ‘poor, pitiful us’ – which I find reprehensible and disgusting.”
“I think Cooper and Nicholas are much more empathetic toward the Menendez brothers than I am, but good,” he concluded. “There’s room for all points of view.”
Ryan previously claimed he had “no interest” in visiting the Menéndez brothers in prison, as cast member Cooper Koch did around the show’s release.
A third season of Monster – this time focusing on a different killer from the 20th century – is due to begin production later this month.
