Netflix and Shondaland have announced a Violet Bridgerton spinoff, exploring her youth and courtship with Edmund Bridgerton, the parents of the iconic Bridgerton siblings. Shonda Rhimes and Nicholas Nardini will lead the project, promising an engaging origin story for the beloved family. Casting details and release dates remain under wraps, but fans eagerly await this addition to the franchise.
Dearest gentle reader, it falls to this Author to report that Lady Violet Bridgerton, the ton's most composed matriarch, is to receive a series of her very own, and that Netflix and Shondaland confirmed the Bridgerton Violet spinoff on Thursday, October 8.
Netflix has ordered an untitled limited series that traces Violet's youth and the courtship that led her to Viscount Edmund Bridgerton. The pair are the parents of the eight siblings at the centre of each season of the main show, which makes this the origin story of the family that keeps the franchise in business. Netflix, naturally, delivered the news as a letter in Lady Whistledown's voice.
Shonda Rhimes and Nicholas Nardini will write the series and serve as showrunners, with Tom Verica and Betsy Beers joining them as executive producers. Rhimes created Queen Charlotte, the first Bridgerton spinoff, and Nardini worked on that series as well. Queen Charlotte would go on to be a huge hit among fans (so we know the show is in good hands, phew!).
Netflix has not announced a single cast member. Ruth Gemmell plays Violet in the main series, and Rupert Evans played Edmund in a season two flashback, but the younger versions of both characters are yet to be cast. Connie Jenkins-Greig played young Violet in Queen Charlotte, and Netflix has not said whether she returns here. However, it's likely that the cast of Queen Charlotte, including India Amarteifio (young Queen Charlotte) and Arsema Thomas (Young Lady Bradbury) will return, given their friendship with Violet in the main storyline.
Netflix has not given a release date, a title or an episode count, and reporting so far says it is unclear when cameras will start rolling. Meanwhile, the main show is going according to schedule. Bridgerton season 5 is currently filming in London and season 6 is already greenlit.
Netflix has not officially announced this, but Bridgerton creator Julia Quinn wrote a story about the Bridgerton matriarch, Violet in Bloom (ahem, so this was the garden references across the show) which was released as a bonus story in the anthology collection The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After.
The story follows an eight-year-old Violet first meeting a ten-year-old Edmund when he visits Sussex. Their friendship gives way to courtship, leading to fifteen happy years of marriage till Edmund's death at the age of 38.
That said, given how Rhimes tends to change elements of the books to fit the show's needs, we don't know if at all this novella will be adapted or the writer's team will come up with a new story.