$100 Million Hate-Watch: Inside Hulu’s ‘All’s Fair’ Trainwreck — and How It Turned Around
SCOOP: I have the budget, cast paydays and behind-the-scenes drama from Kim Kardashian’s critically-savaged series that’s gone ‘zero to hero’
I cover TV from L.A. I interviewed Universal Content Productions chief Beatrice Springborn and wrote about the mood at Warner Bros. Discovery as insiders anticipate a sale and how a combined Paramount-Warners could challenge Netflix. I’m lesley.goldberg@theankler.com
How do you become a show of the moment in 2025? Hulu’s Kim Kardashian vehicle All’s Fair makes an interesting case study.
The series hails from Ryan Murphy, the writer, showrunner and director who has mastered the art of cutting through with a résumé packed with global phenoms including Glee, American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson and Monster, among others. The prolific creator conjured All’s Fair alongside Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken, marking the latest collaboration for the trio following ABC’s cruise ship drama Doctor Odyssey, Hulu’s FX horror entry Grotesquerie and the episodic anthology American Horror Stories.
Few showrunners aim bigger than Murphy. The money, as they say, can be seen on screen with his trademark stars, fashion and gloss. He single-handedly reinvented the seasonal anthology with FX’s American Horror Story (season 13 is due next Halloween) and has parlayed that format success into other genres with American Crime Story (season 4 is in the works), American Sports Story (awaiting word on a second season) and American Love Story, which is due next year. While not every season hits the zeitgeist in the same way, the franchises have something rare in the streaming era: staying power.
Peppered among Murphy’s numerous successes, including Netflix anthologies The Watcher (season 2 is in the works) and Monster (season 4 is in production) are shows with promise that just didn’t work, including Hulu’s Mid-Century Modern, ABC’s Doctor Odyssey and my personal favorite, NBC’s The New Normal, all of which were axed after a single season. Into this mix saunters All’s Fair, which has all the Murphy trappings — a killer cast, slick production values including high-end fashion, jewelry and cars — but doesn’t seem to fit precisely into either of the two buckets that most often define his shows: prestige (People v. O.J.) or populist (Ratched).
The premise of All’s Fair is simple: Kardashian — easily one of the biggest stars on the planet with her 354 million Instagram followers alone — leads the cast as a divorce attorney who owns an all-female law firm. (Kardashian modeled her character, Allura Grant, after her own high-powered matrimonial lawyer, Laura Wasser.)
Murphy revealed at one of the multiple premieres for All’s Fair (more on those later) that the show came together when Disney co-chair of entertainment Dana Walden facilitated a meeting for him with Kris Jenner and Kardashian. After initially pitching a reality show for the trio to team on, Jenner urged Murphy to write a scripted series for Kardashian, which led to her role in 2023’s American Horror Story: Delicate. From there, Jenner and Murphy reportedly pitched Hulu on a legal drama starring Kardashian as a divorce attorney. Hulu, Murphy recalled, said yes immediately.
To say All’s Fair was highly anticipated would be a significant understatement. Packing Kardashian’s global star power and Murphy’s creative clout, the drama is owned and produced by Disney and marks one of the first projects to stem from his return to the company under the nine-figure exclusive overall deal he signed in 2023 (after his five-year detour to Netflix).
But now All’s Fair is here and, four episodes in, the series has become the talk of the town — though likely not in the way Murphy, Kardashian or anyone at Disney intended. As The Wrap recently opined, “Ryan Murphy is getting the worst reviews of his career. It doesn’t even matter.” Despite those terrible reviews, Hulu is boasting record viewership (“the biggest Hulu Original scripted series premiere in three years, driving 3.2M views globally after 3 days streaming”), Kardashian and company are leaning into the camp factor and people are certainly talking about the show more than a week after its premiere, which is a feat in itself.
So, is All’s Fair a model of how to cut through in 2025? Was the series worth the millions Disney and Murphy spent to make it? Do the reviews even matter? Does hate-watching help Hulu draw subscribers?
I spoke to multiple sources familiar with the show’s development and production, as well as other stakeholders in television, about this drama’s wild and glamorous ride so far.
In my column today, I’ve got:
The real budget math: what Hulu shelled out per episode — and what Kardashian, Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close and Niecy Nash-Betts were paid
How a California tax credit and some classic Ryan Murphy magic made the nine-figure production possible
How Kim K and Co. spun the worst reviews of the year into a viral marketing win
Disney’s master plan to use All’s Fair as the glossy face of Hulu’s new global streaming brand
And the question haunting exec suites: Did this $100 million hate-watch actually move the needle for Hulu?
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