The Shards Debuts Aug 5 on FX & Hulu

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- The Shards will premiere on FX and Hulu on Aug. 5 at 6 p.m. PT.
- Ryan Murphy is adapting Bret Easton Ellis’s autofiction thriller novel for the series, joining his recent work on “Love Story,” “The Beauty,” and “All’s Fair.”
- Trawler is the serial killer stalking teenagers in the series, which is set in 1980s Los Angeles and follows aspiring writer Bret (Igby Rigney).
- Nina Jacobson serves as an executive producer on the series, which is produced by 20th Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television.
- HBO previously developed an adaptation of the novel with director Luca Guadagnino before Murphy took over the project in 2025.
Why it matters: FX and Hulu gain a high‑profile, genre‑bending series that taps the 1980s Los Angeles teen‑drama market, while the novel’s previous HBO project is superseded, shifting the property’s future to Murphy’s production pipeline and giving 20th Television a new flagship drama anchored by a dark serial‑killer storyline.




