A mega-producer who often has multiple TV series airing simultaneously, Ryan Murphy is currently celebrating the success of Monster: The Ed Gein Story on Netflix, with his network TV offerings 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Nashville recently debuting on ABC. Plus, there’s the Kim Kardashian-starring legal drama All’s Fair, the anthology Love Story‘s debut, and the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Shards. He’s a busy dude, to say the least, but the project of his I’m most excited for is the comic-sourced horror-thriller The Beauty.
Based on the acclaimed comic book series co-created by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, The Beauty takes place in a world where a serum is developed that gives users a miraculous new lease on youth and vigor. Of course, miracles come with stiff prices; in this case, anyone who takes the imperfect “beauty” formula is guaranteed both a shortened lifeline and a wildly violent ending, and it’s up to a specialized group of government agents to figure out what’s happening
Speaking at New York Comic-Con (via EW) alongside various cast members, Ryan Murphy offered up a synopsis that points to the dangers invested in the new show’s narrative, saying:
Because it’s a sci-fi show, there is a catch. They soon find out there’s a glitch in the shot in which you only last 855 days or something and then you explode, and then it’s all over. As our story begins, which I love doing, there’s a rash of exploding supermodels all over the globe who are captured on cellphones. So Evan and Rebecca are called in to investigate.
Murphy is talking about Evan Peters and co-star Rebecca Hall, who are presumably playing Drew Foster and Kara Vaughn, respectively, the comic book agents whose lives become enveloped in a rash of high-profile deaths that lead them further into a wide-ranging government conspiracy. And that’s likely where Ashton Kutcher’s character comes in.
Last seen starring in the 2023 Netflix rom-com Your Place or Mine and cameoing in That ‘90s Show Season 1 with Mila Kunis, Kutcher returns to serialized TV as The Beauty‘s biotech billionaire baddie, even if he isn’t necessarily a villain within his own story, nor to the many people actively seeking out and enjoying the benefits of the age-defying concoction.
Ryan Murphy Makes The Beauty Sound Like Nothing Else On TV
Already, The Beauty‘s storyline is a unique one, even if it may outwardly seem to share similarities with network crime procedurals. But Murphy shared that it truly does mash together all kinds of styles and moods, saying:
[The series incorporates a] combination of really heightened genres. It has amazing action sequences. It has a lot of body horror. It has a great love story. It has a great buddy-comedy thing going on, and it has a great villain.
How many times have you seen a buddy-comedy project that also boasts “a lot of body horror?” The first thing I can think of is Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, and there aren’t a whole lot of other examples easily following that one. But even that beloved feature didn’t exactly hang on a great love story, and maybe didn’t have action sequences that earned an “amazing” descriptor.
As well, how many times do we get to see Evan Peters as the hero and Ashton Kutcher as the villain? Never in the same show before now.
Murphy’s explanation also works to describe the comic book, which skews a bit more horror than anything else, which isn’t a genre that most of its stars are known for, from Kutcher to Jeremy Pope to Anthony Ramos. (It also applies to Bella Hadid, who plays one of the unfortunate supermodels mentioned above.) Which just makes me all the more excited, knowing how well-versed Peters is with darker storytelling after earning praise for Monster‘s Jeffrey Dahmer and many seasons of American Horror Story, both from Ryan Murphy.
The Beauty doesn’t yet have an official release date locked in, but Murphy indicated that audiences with FX and/or Hulu subscriptions will be able to enjoy all the head-exploding fun during the “third week of January” 2026.