Rebel Moon star Charlie Hunnam is sticking with Netflix for its third installment of its Monster true crime series.
The first of the Ryan Murphy-produced franchise, DAHMER: Monster – The Jeffrey Dahmer Story earned 13 Emmy nominations and one win for Niecy Nash-Betts in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series category.
The second, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, is coming to Netflix Sept. 19. At the Los Angeles premiere of that installment, it was announced Hunnam will play Ed Gein and that production will get underway in October.
Gein was one of the country’s most notorious suspected serial killers, whose crimes — and fashioning clothing items from corpses — in the 1950s inspired the murderers Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Norman Bates in Psycho.
Charlie Hunnam is joining the Ryan Murphy universe.
Murphy, 58, announced that the third installment in his Monsters franchise is in the works — with Hunnam, 44, leading the charge as notorious real-life serial killer Ed Gein.
The showrunner shared the news during his Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story premiere in Los Angeles on Monday, September 16. Following the premiere, Netflix announced the news via X, sharing a photo of the Sons of Anarchy alum.
Netflix shared on Tuesday, September 17, that production on season 3 is set to start next month.
Aside from Hunnam’s casting news as Gein, not much information about the third season has been released just yet. Gein, nicknamed the “Butcher of Plainfield,” was convicted of one count of first-degree murder and admitted to a second killing in the 1950s. However, it’s suspected that he was involved in multiple other crimes around his Plainfield, Wisconsin. Gein also admitted to exhuming multiple graves and fashioned grotesque keepsakes out of the bodies. He is said to be one of the inspirations behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and many other horror films.
Murphy’s Monster franchise premiered via the streamer in September 2022 with The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, starring Evan Peters as the titular character. The second season set to premiere on Thursday, September 19, is titled The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and will follow the story of brothers Lyle Menéndez (Nicholas Chavez) and Erik Menéndez (Cooper Koch).
“One of the things that you and I didn’t know, but soon found out, is that there are literally thousands and thousands and thousands of TikToks from young people, specifically young women, talking about the Lyle and Erik Menendez case,” Murphy told collaborator Ian Brennan at a New York City screening for the show earlier this month.
The show follows the true story of the Menéndez Brothers who were convicted of the 1989 murder of their parents, José and Kitty, which they claimed was in self-defense after years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
Brennan, 46, added that he was “blown away” by the social media response.
“It seemed so current to them,” he continued of fans. “I think one of the one of the things is we finally have a vernacular to think about and discuss sex abuse and mental health that did not exist at the time.”
Murphy went on to compare this upcoming season to Dahmer.
“This season was about abuse. Who is believed, who’s not believed,” he said. “All the stuff in here, by the way, is true. We spent many, many, many years researching this. Things you really can’t make up, but the thing that I was struck by when Ian and I were working on it was … [the show is] really more interested in talking about how monsters are made, as opposed to born.”
Serial producer Ryan Murphy, the man behind “American Horror Story,” “Feud,” “Pose” and many more, is already sharpening his knife for the third in his “Monster” series, which focuses on serial killers. With “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” debuting on Netflix later this week (and second in the gruesome collection after “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” from 2022), Murphy disclosed at the red carpet premiere that next in the queue will be something of a classic—a look at Ed Gein, the Wisconsin killer whose murders in the 1950s loosely inspired the Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho,” and, when more of the repulsive particulars became known, inspired Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” the Buffalo Bill character from “Silence of the Lambs,” and Rob Zombie’s “House of 1000 Corpses.”
There have been more straightforward tellings of Gein’s story (Steve Railsback and Carrie Snodgrass starring in 2000’s “In The Light of the Moon” probably being the most upmarket) but Murphy’s “Monster” will certainly be the most widely seen. We can only imagine how the Emmys FYC campaign will go for this one – using corpses to create such objects as clothing out of human skin was, indeed, one of Gein’s hobbies.
British actor Charlie Hunnam has been tapped to explore the mind of the depraved villain. Hunnam is coming off of the Netflix-produced Zack Snyder sci-fi epic “Rebel Moon,” and his previous work includes “The Lost City of Z,” “Crimson Peak,” “Pacific Rim,” and the lead role in FX’s “The Sopranos on Motorcycles” series “Sons of Anarchy.” (That show won Katey Sagal a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama back in 2011.)
The real life serial killer who inspired classic cinema villains including Norman Bates, Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, Ed Gein will be the subject of the upcoming third season of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix anthology series “Monster,” which debuted with a Jeffrey Dahmer-centered first season and continues with second season “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” this week.
The outlet explains, “Each cycle of the Monster franchise intends to tackle a different true-crime story after the massive success of the 2022 debut about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Known as “The Butcher of Plainfield,” Ed Gein was a grave robber and murderer who committed his monstrous crimes in the 1940s and the 1950s in Plainfield, Wisconsin.
Like the family in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Gein turned human bones and skin into keepsakes and furniture, and even wore the skin of his victims.
Ed Gein has been portrayed on screen a few times over the years, with 1974’s Deranged starring Roberts Blossom (Home Alone) as Ezra Cobb, a character directly based on Gein.
Steve Railsback and Kane Hodder have also played Ed Gein on screen.
Ryan Murphy has found his next Monster.
Sons of Anarchy alum Charlie Hunnam will star as infamous serial killer Ed Gein in Season 3 of the Netflix true-crime anthology, Murphy announced Monday at an event for Monster’s upcoming second season. (Our sister site Variety first reported the news.)
Ed Gein confessed to killing two women in the 1950s and was accused of digging up corpses and making keepsakes out of human body parts, with his crimes serving as the inspiration for Hollywood horror movies like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Each season of Monster is centered on a different real-life killer who made headlines. Season 1 starred Evan Peters as cannibalistic killer Jeffrey Dahmer, with Niecy Nash as suspicious neighbor Glenda. Murphy co-created the series with Ian Brennan and served as showrunner. The season was a big hit, becoming one of Netflix’s most-watched series ever with more than 1 billion hours viewed in total. It also earned a number of awards and nominations, including an Emmy for Nash.
Season 2, dubbed Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, debuts this Thursday on Netflix and dramatizes the saga of the Menendez brothers, who became a tabloid sensation when they killed their parents in 1989. Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch star as Lyle and Erik, with Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny as their parents José and Kitty.
Hunnam is best known for playing biker Jax Teller on FX’s Sons of Anarchy, which wrapped up a seven-season run in 2014. His other TV credits include Queer as Folk, Undeclared and the Apple TV+ drama Shantaram. He’s next slated to star as a master thief in Prime Video’s Criminal.
Charlie Hunnam is joining the “Monster” cinematic universe.
The “Sons of Anarchy” and “King Arthur” actor has been cast as the serial killer Ed Gein for the coming third installment of Ryan Murphy‘s “Monster” anthology series. Production will begin in October 2024.
Gein was infamous for crafting clothing out of human skin from his victims. He confessed to the murders of two women and was suspected of killing seven others between 1947 and 1957. Gein was a grave robber, notorious for exhuming corpses from what was supposed to be their final resting place.
He’s already been, in some way, memorialized by Hollywood. Gein inspired the characters of Norman Bates in “Psycho” and Buffalo Bill in “Silence of the Lambs,” as well as Leatherface in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
The first “Monster” installment debuted on Netflix in 2022, with Evan Peters portraying Jeffrey Dahmer. It was a monster hit: Season 1 is the fourth most-watched show (in any language) in Netflix history.
“Monster” Season 2 will debut on Netflix on Thursday, September 19. Titled “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” the installment centers on the 1989 killings of José and Kitty Menendez, portrayed respectively by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny. Their sons Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) Menendez were convicted of the murders. The brothers alleged they were victims of abuse.
“When you make a show like our first season ‘Dahmer,’ which was so unexpectedly successful, the thing that was our way in … was really about looking at who gets justice and different forms of social injustice,” Murphy said during a NYC premiere screening for Season 2. “And I felt the same way about this season. This season was about abuse. Who is believed, who’s not believed. … All the stuff in here, by the way, is true. We spent many, many, many years researching this. Things you really can’t make up, but the thing that I was struck by when Ian and I were working on it was … [the show is] really more interested in talking about how monsters are made, as opposed to born. Every season has that in common. This one certainly does, and we try to not have too much judgment about that, because we’re trying to understand why they did something, as opposed to the act of doing something.”
