Comedian and writer John Mulaney will host a live variety talk show on Netflix, the streaming company announced in a post on X. The show may be similar to Mulaney’s Everybody’s in LA, a live talk show that streamed on Netflix for six episodes in May 2024.
Mulaney’s production company will produce and he’ll be the showrunner, but no other details were revealed. However, at an event in LA, Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria said Everybody’s in LA showed what a weekly live talk/variety show could look like on the service. “[It] was just so bold and original and fresh and then unpredictable,” he said, “And I think it’ll be really fun to get to do a live show with him.”
Netflix has developed a reputation for not giving shows time to develop an audience even if critics love them — with Jeff Goldblum’s Kaos being the latest example. However, Bajaria admitted that viewership for Everybody’s in LA wasn’t huge, so the streamer is clearly willing to deviate from that strategy in some cases. In fact, Netflix has stuck with comedians even when they generate controversy, as its history with Dave Chappelle has shown. That’s possibly because comedy specials and talk shows are dirt cheap to produce compared to scripted series.