Ryan Murphy considered making a Monster season about Luigi Mangione

Ryan Murphy, creator of Netflix’s Monster anthology series following infamous killers, has revealed that he considered a series about suspected killer Luigi Mangione.

Ryan Murphy’s Netflix anthology Monster has thus far had seasons dedicated to Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and out gay star Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik Menendez, an upcoming third series centred on Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein – with a fourth planned to follow maybe-lesbian Lizzie Borden.

It makes sense, therefore, that creator Ryan Murphy has a list of possible figures for potential future seasons to focus on – but one option that he considered was a slight departure from the usual profile of the show’s central figure.

Speaking to Variety about season three of Monster, Murphy revealed that he thought about making a series on Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, last year.

“We have a ‘maybe one day’ file,” Murphy told the publication of possible Monster subjects. “We know nothing about him,” he added of Mangione, citing that it was too soon to dramatise the matter.

Thompson was shot and killed in New York City on 4 December last year, and a nationwide manhunt led to Magnione’s arrest five days later in Pennsylvania. Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering Mr Thompson.

Teasing Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Hunnam, who is best known by the queer community for his role in Queer As Folk, shared how got into the mind of the killer known as the Plainfield Butcher – a man with a penchant for wearing his victim’s skin.

“You have to have an enormous amount of love and empathy for a character that you play to be able to inhabit them,” he said. “Because as despicable as Ed was in his acts, I wanted to find the human in there.” 

Hunnam continued: “I personally don’t like to be forced to confront the most bleak and sinister elements of the human condition.”

He added: “I could certainly see the accusation being leveled at me that I was too sensitive toward him, and let him off the hook a bit too much.

“My hope was, although I clearly don’t understand the function of these type of stories, I understand that people are very drawn to them. I needed to bring Gein to life in as honest and human a way as possible.”

Monster: The Ed Gein Story lands on Netflix on 3 October.

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