Netflix to Produce Ryan Murphy's Nurse Ratched Series Starring Sarah Paulson

Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste

Read our announcement | See the 10 Best Games of 2025 (So Far)

In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched is the sadistic, authoritarian villain in charge of the mental hospital that serves as the setting. Well, Ryan Murphy wants to give that villain an origin story.

Murphy has scored a two-season, 18-episode order from Netflix for Ratched, a drama series initially set in 1947, when Ratched was just an average nurse. Murphy will direct the pilot of the series from newcomer Evan Romansky, who wrote the script on spec, according to Deadline.

Ratched will star longtime Murphy collaborator Sarah Paulson in the title role. Michael Douglas will executive produce, and Paul Zaentz of the Saul Zaentz Company (which was behind the famous 1976 film adaptation of the novel starring Jack Nicholson) will produce.

Ratched is scheduled to premiere on Netflix sometime in mid-2018.

Netflix to Produce Ryan Murphy’s Nurse Ratched Series Starring Sarah Paulson