Disney Scores Big With Seductive New Thriller That’s Taken Over Streaming

Prolific TV auteur Ryan Murphy has created yet another hit with his steamy new thriller that’s dominating the streaming charts. Murphy has delivered more hits than misses throughout his 27-year career as a TV series creator, director, writer, and executive producer — he’s helmed Nip/Tuck, Glee, 9-1-1, Monster, American Horror Story, and 21 other shows. Murphy premiered his latest passion project last week, six months after the promising yet ill-fated The Beauty.

A coming-of-age story set in the early 1980s, The Shards follows 17-year-old Bret Ellis (played by Igby Rigney of The Midnight Club, Midnight Mass) in his final year at an elite Los Angeles prep school. His already turbulent transition to adulthood is upended by a mysterious new student, whose arrival coincides with a wave of murders committed by a local serial killer. What follows is a psychological thriller about obsession, paranoia, and deceit told through the adult Bret’s retrospective. The Shards is based on the namesake autofiction novel by Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho.

‘The Shards’ Is At the Top of the Streaming Charts

The Shards has topped the Disney+ global TV chart one week after premiering on the platform, outpacing chart-climbing newcomers Furious and Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi. The Shards has also beaten top ten frequenters Bluey Compilations and High Potential. However, it has also dropped four spots after peaking at #1 yesterday on the US Top 10 TV chart, but it could reclaim the top spots next week when Episode 5 drops. The Shards is slated for nine episodes, and Murphy intends to make much more than that, though there’s no news yet on the show’s Season 2 prospects.

‘The Shards’ Was Almost an HBO Series

FX

A long-time fan of Ellis’ work, Murphy acquired the rights to adapt The Shards in 2024, after HBO opted out. Ellis and HBO reportedly had irreconcilable differences about the adaptation, and The Shards was also supposedly dropped in favor of Euphoria after Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav ramped up budget cuts. Ellis had vowed never to work again with the TV industry in the aftermath. He only reconsidered after Murphy assured him that the project would be fast-tracked.

Ellis only co-wrote the first two episodes of The Shards, and then allowed Murphy to make the show his own. They agreed the story is dense enough to sustain a three-year drama series, and Murphy said he’s shooting for 30 episodes, which will weave in his own experiences of the tumultuous 1980s. The show will also change a key element in the book — the serial killer’s identity. Ellis kept that ambiguous, but Murphy teased that he will dispel the mystery. He’s guarding that secret for now, especially from the cast.

The Shards is shaping to be another hit-or-miss with a 53% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A handful of critics panned Murphy’s adaptation as vapid, hollow, superficial, and unoriginal, while another argued the show was faithful to the book’s style and substance. The Shards is well worth watching if you’re into slick dark teen dramas, and especially if you’re looking for something like Cruel Summer, Baby, Gossip Girl, and yes, Euphoria.

Release Date

August 5, 2026

Network

FX, Hulu

Writers

Juli Weiner, Charles Rogers, Bret Easton Ellis, Ryan Murphy, Lenore Zion