Shonda Rhimes Just Signed a $10 Million Deal With Netflix

Shonda Rhimes, the creator of literally every TV show that is pure and good and filled with incredibly dramatic character deaths, has just inked a very lucrative deal with Netflix, the streaming service announced today.

Rhimes' studio Shondaland, which produces TV juggernauts like Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, How to Get Away With Murder, and Scandal, has worked with US network ABC for the past 15 years to considerable success. According to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix poached Rhimes from ABC by offering to pay her around $10 million per year to generate new hit shows. Rhimes' longtime producing partner, Betsy Beers, will move across with her.

Luckily, How to Get Away With Murder, Grey's, and Scandal will continue to air on ABC. The latter two have been renewed for 2017, and a Grey's spin-off is currently in pre-production. "Shonda Rhimes is one of the greatest storytellers in the history of television," Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer of Netflix, says in a press release. "Her work is gripping, inventive, pulse-pounding, heart-stopping, taboo-breaking television at its best." He's not wrong. This is a smart fucking move on the part of Netflix. As a writer and producer, Rhimes is basically the boss of television. Most projects she touches turn to gold, perhaps because she doesn't play it safe. She gave McDreamy life, and then she took it away. She has fired lead actors for their homophobia. She loves a plane crash, she loves a bomb scare. She loves a diverse cast, and a strong female lead. She is responsible for this scene, one of the greatest to ever screen:

Also, she wrote the script for Crossroads.

Rhimes seems pretty happy with the deal, too. "Shondaland's move to Netflix is the result of a shared plan Ted Sarandos and I built based on my vision for myself as a storyteller and for the evolution of my company," she says in the same press release.

"Ted…understood what I was looking for—the opportunity to build a vibrant new storytelling home for writers with the unique creative freedom and instantaneous global reach provided by Netflix's singular sense of innovation. The future of Shondaland at Netflix has limitless possibilities."

Look forward to pouring an Olivia Pope-sized glass of red wine and streaming some Shonda sometime in the near future.

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