Ryan Murphy STD show casts Evan Peters, Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope

Would you willingly contract a sexually transmitted disease if you knew it would make you beautiful? That’s the premise of the 2016 comic book series The Beauty, as well as Ryan Murphy’s new TV endeavor.

With audiences currently watching Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix and Grotesquerie on FX, Murphy has set plans for his next small-screen effort with a killer ensemble. Two previous Murphy collaborators, Evan Peters and Jeremy Pope, will join Ashton Kutcher and Anthony Ramos in FX’s The Beauty, which has officially been approved for an 11-episode first season.

Murphy wrote the series with Matthew Hodgson, who worked on Glee, 9-1-1, and American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.

Plot details have yet to be disclosed, but here’s what we know about the comics, which were written by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley and published by Image Comics. The Beauty is a sci-fi procedural focused on two cops, detectives Foster and Vaughn, who are investigating a strange but poignant phenomenon that swept the nation: an STD that burns fat, chisels jaws, sculpts muscles, and makes the infected beautiful.

Half the country is currently infected, with the vast majority of those individuals contracting the disease on purpose. The problem is that Foster and Vaughn quickly learn that the STD is fatal, and it might have been introduced to the populace as part of a secret government plot. The comics ran for 29 issues, capping with a final installment in 2019.

Murphy doesn’t typically adapt specific books or comics for his work, but The Beauty follows the 12th season of American Horror Story, subtitled Delicate. Starring Kim Kardashian and Emma Roberts, the two-part release adapted the 2023 book Delicate Condition, by Danielle Valentine.

In addition to starring in The Beauty, Ramos joins the long list of executive producers. Coming off Twisters, he’ll soon be seen in the Marvel series Ironheart on Disney+.

Peters has worked with Murphy on a number of different projects, including multiple seasons of American Horror Story and headlining Dahmer: Monster — The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Pope worked on Murphy’s Netflix series Hollywood, though he gained more recent attention for a Golden Globe-nominated performance in The Inspection.

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Kutcher hasn’t been as active in Hollywood compared to his comedy heyday, but he was seen in the That ’70s Show sequel That ’90s Show and appeared in films like Vengeance and Your Place or Mine after starring on The Ranch for four seasons.