Netflix has announced that the second season of Ryan Murphy’s true-crime anthology series, Monster, will premiere on September 19. The upcoming season is titled Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Following the success of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which premiered in 2022 and became a major hit for the streaming platform, Netflix has expanded it into an anthology format franchise.
The upcoming season will focus on the infamous case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, two brothers convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez.
The official synopsis states, “While the prosecution argued they were seeking to inherit their family fortune, the brothers claimed -- and remain adamant to this day, as they serve life sentences without the possibility of parole -- that their actions stemmed out of fear from a lifetime of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story explores this historic case and poses the question: Who are the real monsters?”
Newcomers Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch will portray the Menendez brothers, with Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny cast as their parents. Nathan Lane will play investigative journalist Dominick Dunne, and Ari Graynor will take on the role of criminal defence attorney Leslie Abramson.
The Menendez case has been adapted for the screen multiple times over the years.
The previous iterations include the TV movie Menendez: Blood Brothers (2017), and the series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders (2017).
Additionally, Peacock’s 2023 documentary Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed centred on allegations of sexual abuse involving the brothers’ father Jose Menendez.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is directed by Ian Brennan, Max Winkler, Paris Barclay, Michael Uppendahl and Carl Franklin.
Meanwhile, Murphy’s upcoming horror drama series Grotesquerie will start streaming from September 25.