‘New Amsterdam’ Sequel About Max’s Daughter Heading to NBC From Creator David Schulner
New Amsterdam Hospital might be opening its doors once more.
A spinoff of New Amsterdam, the beloved medical drama which bowed last year, is in development at NBC, Deadline reports. Creator/showrunner David Schulner is behind the sequel, which will follow Dr. Max Goodwin’s (Ryan Eggold) daughter, Luna Goodwin, as she takes over her father’s job at the hospital.
With a working title of New Amsterdam: Tomorrow, the sequel is set 30 years after the original show ended. The plot has been kept under wraps, though Deadline reports that there will be a focus on AI’s influence on the hospital system.
Fans saw Molly Griggs as Luna in a flash-forward in the series finale of New Amsterdam, though it hasn’t been confirmed if the actress will reprise her role in the spinoff. Schulner revealed that his decision to feature a grown-up Luna in the show’s final scene came from his 11-year-old daughter, who pitched him the idea.
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“I was like, ‘You do your school work and I'll focus on writing,’” Schulner recounted to Entertainment Weekly in a January 2023 interview. “A week later, Laura Valdivia, one of our writers, pitched me the same ending and then a week after that Erika Green Swafford, another one of our writers, was on set with me and was like, ‘I know might sound crazy, but what if Luna came back as the medical director?’ Within three weeks, they all pitched me this ending and I was like, ‘This is our ending.’"
The showrunner added that it was a satisfying full circle moment to end the series with Luna speaking in the auditorium, just as her dad did in the pilot.
“We opened the pilot essentially with Max in the auditorium and the first thing he says is, ‘My sister died here, I grew up here and this is why I wanted to work here,’" he recalled. “It felt fitting for Luna to be in that same auditorium and she got to say, ‘My mother died here. I grew up here and that's why I wanted to be a doctor here.’"
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New Amsterdam ran for five seasons before signing off with a two-hour finale in January. NBC ordered an abbreviated final season for the show, which ran for 13 episodes. The breakout series developed a loyal legion of followers while it was on the air, with NBC estimating that it averaged almost 10 million viewers in 2020.
While speaking to ET to promote the last episode in January 2023, Schulner admitted that it was a “blessing and a curse” to know that the show was ending. “A curse because we had more stories to tell and more places to go, and we thought we had a couple more years left. But a blessing because we got to end it on our terms and so few shows get to do that," he explained.
The showrunner went on to note that he wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet. "We're never content, we're never satisfied,” he said. “But no, please, we'll give you our phone numbers, call us. We'll do the reboot."
