In the week following the Ashley Madison hack, which wreaked so much havoc for so many people, you can bet multiple Hollywood executives had the same thought: This would be an amazing idea for a TV show.
Don’t worry, someone’s on it: Last fall, production company OutEast Entertainment partnered with Canadian studio MarbleMedia to develop a scripted drama that “will explore the taboo world of extramarital affairs in the digital age and how they evolve.” Now, thanks to the events of the last week, that project has received an extra shot of attention as the producers are shopping it around to various networks.
“There are a lot of TV shows doing a great job of presenting marriage storylines in new ways, but what we’re positing here is, what if there is a third lane to run in and what if you were honest about it?” producer Courtney Hazlett told the Hollywood Reporter.
THR confirmed that the working title is “Thank You Ashley Madison.” Instead of ripping straight from backstory of the real-life site, THR reports, the main character will now be a mom who starts the site when she needs money for her family; in real life, the CEO of Ashley Madison is Noel Biderman. Of course, the show will cover last week’s incident when millions of email addresses were hacked and revealed.
Honestly, even though it’s the kind of juicy drama that would do well on a TV show, this concept has another thing going for it: People love TV shows about real-life scandals. Just look at the success of “The Good Wife,” which started as it mirrored the Eliot Spitzer incident: Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) standing side by side with her disgraced politician husband, Peter Florrick (Chris Noth).
Or Lifetime’s “The Client List,” based on the massage parlor/prostitution ring in Texas, which garnered such high ratings as a TV movie that it became a TV series starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Plus, we can’t forget “Scandal,” based on the life of Judy Smith, an actual fixer of Washington, D.C., scandals.
Anyway, the potential Ashley Madison series could have a big launch at first, especially considering that the fallout from the hack is likely to affect some people for a long, long time. But could weekly installments of affairs keep viewers’ attention? Producers are hopeful there’s an endless amount of material to explore.
In a Hollywood Reporter story last year, Biderman (who supported the development of a TV series) explained the rationale for why people would be interested.
“We’d all liked to have been a fly on the wall as Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton fooled around in the Oval Office,” he said. “And we’d all loved to have been there when Tiger Woods bedded mistress after mistress.”
