EXCLUSIVE: The competition to produce a Netflix game show based on iconic board game Monopoly is heating up.
Deadline understands that three companies – Studio Lambert, Wheelhouse and Endemol Shine North America – are vying for the right to produce the show as part of a large-scale bake-off.
The bake-off was the talk of the unscripted town earlier this summer with around 50 companies understood to have submitted creative ideas for the adaptation with around 30 pre-approved by the streamer.
Studio Lambert is behind series such as Peacock’s The Traitors, for which it recently won another Emmy, and the All3Media-owned company is in business with Netflix on series such as Squid Game: The Challenge. It also produced The Circle, Dance 100 and Surviving Paradise for the streamer.
Wheelhouse has also worked with Netflix on a number of projects including Million Dollar Secret, the Peter Serafinowicz-hosted game show that was recently renewed for a second season, as well as Buying Beverly Hills, which ran for two seasons and King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch.
Endemol Shine North America is behind series such as ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, CBS’s The Summit, Fox’s MasterChef and Lego Masters and NBC’s Deal or No Deal Island. On the scripted front, it produced Ripley, which aired on Netflix. Endemol Shine North America Sharon Levy told Deadline earlier this year that the streamer was “biggest target for ’25”.
Netflix struck a deal for the rights to Monopoly from Hasbro Entertainment earlier this year.
Gaspin told Deadline earlier this summer that he was convinced to buy the project without a pitch in part due to the success of Monopoly Go!, the mobile board game from Scopely that came out in 2023. That game is thought to have had more than 150 million downloads and generated at least $5 billion in revenue.
“There’s a gameplay in Monopoly Go! that I think really will resonate with gameplay in an unscripted series,” he said. “The idea itself is still up for grabs. How do we want to approach it? Is it a giant game board? Is it in the real world? We don’t have the answer and we had so many agents and so many production companies reaching out and asking us if they can participate, and asking if we’ll consider putting them in the bake-off that we didn’t want to be restrictive. So, we said, ‘Why don’t we do a first round that’s pretty broad.’”
One of the aims for the large-scale bake-off was to open doors for companies that may have not previously worked with Netflix or worked on such a high-profile project.
“Even if they don’t get picked on this project, we might see something in their pitch that we really like, so we’ll keep them in mind the next time something comes along. I think it’s healthy for the community to give a lot of people an opportunity,” Gaspin told Deadline in July.
Deadline understands that two companies that didn’t make the final three have, in fact, scored separate developments with the streamer.
Netflix declined to comment.
