Netflix Developing Limited Series Version Of Buzzy Edinburgh Fringe Play ‘Weather Girl’ As Streamer Seeks Next ‘Baby Reindeer’
EXCLUSIVE: There was more buzz than usual around the Edinburgh Fringe this year as the Baby Reindeer effect took hold and Netflix may have just landed on the next play-to-TV hit.
In a competitive situation, Deadline is told that the streamer has secured the rights to Weather Girl, an apocalyptic one-woman play about a Californian weather girl in meltdown that staged sold out shows throughout August to rave reviews. We understand there were several U.S. buyers interested in Weather Girl and Netflix has just won out.
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The play’s writer Brian Watkins (Outer Range) and star Julia McDermott (Women of the Movement) are both attached to the TV version, we are told. The project is in early stage development and may not make it to greenlight.
Intriguingly, Deadline understands A24 was also in town for Edinburgh and is interested in staging a U.S. version of the play at the Off Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre it bought last year for $10M.
Directed by Tyne Rafaeli, the darkly comic Weather Girl tells the story of Stacey, a Californian in meltdown regularly delivering bulletins about our dying planet while reckoning with her own mental health, before she discovers something that will save us all. The play touches on themes of environmentalism, the climate emergency and consumer capitalism.
Notably, the play was staged by Francesca Moody Productions, which was also behind the theater versions of Baby Reindeer and Fleabag.
Baby Reindeer has arguably been Netflix’s biggest breakout of the year, coming third in the streamer’s most-watched for the first half of 2024 and representing fantastic ROI given its lack of big stars and splashy locations, although it has of course attracted plenty controversy and legal mire.
The success of what started life as Richard Gadd’s one-man Edinburgh play about his experience of being stalked and sexually assaulted has re-alerted buyers to the potential of theater-to-screen hits. This is, of course, nothing new, given the success of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, which started life as a one-woman play in 2013 and went on to define the dramedy genre via a BBC-Amazon TV series.
Netflix declined to comment on Weather Girl.
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