Ryan Murphy Is Developing A Nurse Ratched Origin Series Starring Sarah Paulson

Expensive television cosplay enthusiast Ryan Murphy must have found some kind of drug or coffee that makes you extra-productive during the day. Because not only is he working on the second season of Feud, putting the finishing opulent gold-plated touches on American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, trying to figure out what to do with American Crime Story: Katrina, and dodging bitchy voicemail messages from a pissed-off Olivia de Havilland, he’s now working on an origin series about Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And of course it will star his main girl Sarah Paulson.

Deadline says Netflix won a bidding war for a two-season, 18-episodes per season series about the devil’s cold-hearted sister in white leather clinic shoes. The show will be called Ratched, and will begin production sometime in mid-2018. Ryan Murphy will direct the first episode, and will executive produce the series along with Michael Douglas, who produced the 1975 film.

Ratched will reportedly begin in 1947 and track Nurse Ratched’s “murderous progression through the mental health care system.” Shoot, she’s been murdering for that many years? Someone contact their local bus bench lawyer, I think we’ve got the basis for a serious medical malpractice suit.

Nurse Ratched was played in OFOTCN by Louise Fletcher, who went on to win a Best Actress Oscar for the role. Sarah Paulson seems to get nominated (and sometimes win) an Emmy every time Ryan Murphy puts her in a busted wig, so Sarah could probably just go ahead and start clearing some room in her trophy case now.

As for how Nurse Ratched becomes the dead-eyed Nurse Ratched we all know, Deadline doesn’t say. They have no other information on the story. But I’d be willing to guess her breaking point has something to do with the constant uncomfortable scalp jabbing from all the pins in that hairstyle, or years of hospital paperwork. Wrapping up a double shift and realizing you can’t go home until you’ve filled out a double shift’s worth of forms by hand is enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity.

Pics: United Artists, Wenn.com