Hulu is “working on” a reality show about swinging “Mormon” wives, according to an executive with the company.
Deadline reported that Rob Mills, Walt Disney Television’s executive vice president of unscripted and alternative entertainment, told an audience at the Realscreen Summit, “We have a show that we’re working on now that we’re excited about, which is about a group of Mormon wives who are also swingers.”
(Disney owns two-thirds of Hulu and controls the streamer.)
Mills provided no further details to the trade gathering in New Orleans and did not specify what he meant by “Mormon.” Are they current members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Past members? Current or former members of fundamentalist offshoot groups? Will it be about women in Utah? Hulu has not replied to a request for further information.
It’s worth remembering that not all such announcements actually result in finished programs. Unless and until Hulu announces a premiere date, it is not a done deal. For that matter, there have been shows that never made it to TV or streaming even after premiere dates were announced.
In May 2022, a film company announced that it would produce “Sinner V. Saints,” a movie about a Latter-day Saint missionary (played by Freddie Highmore from “The Good Doctor”) from Utah who allegedly was kidnapped by a woman (Maisie Williams of “Game of Thrones”), chained to a bed and raped. (The movie was to be based on a true story about a former Wyoming beauty queen named Joyce McKinney.) It was supposed to be filmed in 2023, but that didn’t happen, and there has been no word about it since the announcement 21 months ago.
The fact that Mills mentioned that the production company behind Netflix’s “Bling Empire” is working on the swinging Mormon wives series does make it more plausible.
If this series actually happens, it would not be the first Hulu program about “Mormons.” In the past couple of years, we’ve seen:
• “Daughters of the Cult,” which started streaming earlier this month, is a six-part docuseries about murderous Mormon fundamentalist leader Ervil LeBaron, told though the eyes of two of his daughters, among others.
• “Mormon No More” (2022), a four-part docuseries centered on two Latter-day Saint housewives who fell in love, divorced their husbands and married each other. It also featured gay Brigham Young University students, a “reparative therapist” who came out as gay; and the question of what “dark skin” means in the church.
• And the FX on Hulu drama “Under the Banner of Heaven” (2022) — based on the infamous Lafferty murders — is still streaming on Hulu.
