Netflix expands Shonda Rhimes' deal to cover video games and virtual reality

It took some doing, but Netflix’s pricey development deal with Shonda Rhimes and her Shondaland production company finally landed an undeniably massive hit last year with the launch of Chris Van Dusen’s Bridgerton—a show about fancy, old-timey people dressing up in fancy, old-timey coats and gowns and then tearing them off as they get down to some fancy, old-timey doin’ it. Bridgerton was renewed for a second season at the beginning of this year, proving that Netflix still has faith in that Shondaland magic, and now Rhimes herself is getting another vote of confidence from Netflix in the form of an extension to her big development deal.

According to Variety, the Netflix/Shondaland deal has been expanded to cover Rhimes and producing partner Betsy Beers working with Netflix to exclusively “produce, stream, and distribute feature films in addition to potential gaming and virtual reality content.” Potential gaming and virtual reality content! Netflix making video games is pretty uncommon, especially if you don’t count stuff like Bandersnatch or that Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt special, but there have been some faux-retro Stranger Things video games in the past. VR seems like a more obvious route for Bridgerton, than video games, if only so people can embody their favorite Bridgertonians in a virtual setting and then virtually make out and stuff, but it would be pretty cool for Rhimes to spearhead the development of something like Mass Effect that back-burners the sci-fi action and emphasizes the relationship drama of a starship captain and her crew of aliens who are all one way dialogue option away from falling in love with her.

The Variety story doesn’t say anything about potential Shondaland video games, which means this is probably just a “Netflix covering all the bases” thing and not a “Shonda Rhimes is coming at Fortnite’s throne” thing, but it’s still nice to imagine what that would look like.