Fresh off her 3 Emmy wins, Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge has landed a $20 million deal with Amazon. Waller-Bridge is most notably known as the creator of both Fleabag and Killing Eve, which both received accolades during Sunday night's 71st Primetime Emmy Awards. The former started off as a one-woman show that originally premiered at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and later made its way to television. It first premiered on BBC Three in 2016 and found a home on Amazon Prime later that same year. The latter series, on the other hand, has its own home on BBC America and has already been renewed for season 3.
Though Killing Eve has shown no signs of slowing down just yet, Waller-Bridge has confirmed that Fleabag will not be returning for a season 3. Despite the massive amount of success the show had received from critics and audiences alike, she explained that the series ended on a perfect high note for the titular character, and it wouldn't make sense to add another season. Though this news may be disappointing for some fans, Waller-Bridge has confirmed that there is more to come from her in the future.
According to Variety, Waller-Bridge has landed a $20 million a year deal with Amazon that allows her to, "create and produce new television content for Amazon Studios that will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video." She explained that she's "insanely excited to be continuing [her] relationship with Amazon," and that, "working with the team on 'Fleabag' was the creative partnership dreams are made of." Head of Amazon Studios, Jennifer Salke, released a statement regarding the company's new partnership with Waller-Bridge, exclaiming that she is, "clever, brilliant, generous, and a virtuoso on multiple fronts." Salke concluded that Fleabag has been, "a gift to our Prime Video customers," and that they're, "excited for what comes next from this brilliant mind to dazzle and delight [their] global audience."
Along with this incredible partnership, Waller-Bridge was also recently brought on to help punch up the script for the 25th Bond film, No Time To Die. The request for her help actually came from Bond himself, Daniel Craig. Not to mention, alongside these upcoming projects, Waller-Bridge also recently finished up a final run of the Fleabag stage play at London's West End. Her final performance as the titular character was on September 14, bringing the full Fleabag chapter in her life to a climactic close.
Waller-Bridge's multiple Emmy wins on Sunday night all delivered a powerful message for female creators. During her first acceptance speech for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series, she exclaimed that it's wonderful and reassuring that a dirty, pervy, angry, messed-up woman could win an award like that. This year's Emmys really drove home that point by showcasing a variety of female-centric and/or female-created shows that reveled in unapologetically human characters. These are the kinds of shows that audiences love to see, and the award recognition serves as a perfect step forward to creating more shows like them. Waller-Bridge's new deal with Amazon also shows this step forward, and hopefully, we can see more unapologetic female-led shows, like Fleabag and Killing Eve, from her in the future.
Source: Variety