’Bridgerton’ Spinoff About Young Lady Violet Greenlit At Netflix With Shonda Rhimes Writing

The long-rumored expansion of the Bridgerton universe is a reality: Netflix has greenlighted an untitled spinoff chronicling the early life of a young Lady Violet and her romance with Viscount Edmund Bridgerton. The widowed Bridgerton family matriarch is played on the mothership series by Ruth Gemmell.

Like Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the Violet prequel will be a limited series from franchise producer Shondaland. It has Shonda Rhimes writing, executive producing and co-showrunning with her Queen Charlotte collaborator Nicholas Nardini. This is the first time the Grey’s Anatomy creator has written a show since she created and executive produce Queen Charlotte.

Rhimes wrote all episodes of the 2023 limited series except one, which was penned by Nardini who also co-wrote another with Rhimes.

While Queen Charlotte was an original creation based on characters from the Bridgerton novels by Julia Quinn, there is a source material for the Young Violet series in the form of Violet In Bloom, a short novella by Quinn which tells the love story of Violet and Edmund.

Queen Charlotte director/executive producer Tom Verica is back in the same capacity for the new limited series. Shondaland’s Betsy Beers also executive produces.

Talk about another Bridgerton prequel limited series started shortly after the successful May 2023 launch of Queen Charlotte, which briefly cracked Netflix’s Most Popular English series list. Queen Charlotte featured the older versions of Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel), Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and Violet (Gemmell) from Bridgerton, making the other two prime suspects to headline their own prequel.

Verica told Deadline in January that existing Bridgerton characters are getting the Queen Charlotte treatment with more spinoffs in development.

Since Queen Charlotte followed Lady Danbury’s romances alongside Charlotte’s marriage as the Queen’s confidante proved to be unlucky in love, Violet emerged as the most likely character to get her own spinoff.

After lengthy development, the project started picking up momentum several months ago, with speculation growing that it would be the first series greenlighted under the new long-term overall deal Rhimes signed with Netflix in August.

Expanding the Bridgerton universe is a key part of Netflix’s Shondaland relationship as it has become a lucrative enterprise generating a lot of revenue from areas beyond streaming, including consumer products and live experiences. On Netflix, Seasons 1 and 3 remain on the Most Popular list, ranking #7 and #10, with Season 5, which shifts the spotlight to the introverted Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd) and Michaela Stirling (Masali Baduza), currently in production in London.

Underscoring Netflix’s commitment to the franchise, the streamer built a special studio for Shondland to film it in the UK.