Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story lands more leading roles

After an incredibly successful first season, Monster is set to return for a second season, this time focusing on Lyle and Erik Menendez. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story boasts a record-breaking debut as the anthology series from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan reached more than 1 billion hours viewed within its first 60 days of the app, one of only four series to reach that spectacular achievement.

Given just how many people tuned in to see Evan Peters play the infamous serial killer, it's no surprise that Netflix renewed the show for two additional installments. Monster: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story is on track for a 2024 debut and Netflix just recently announced who will play the leading roles. Newcomers Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch will play the Menendez brothers, bolstered by a talented cast that includes award-winning actors like Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny.

According to a report, the series started filming the second installment on Dec. 12, 2023, and is scheduled to finish on Feb. 16, 2024, meaning we'll see it released sometime in 2024. Ted Sarandos further confirmed this on April 18, saying the show will be released during the second half of the year.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story premiered on Netflix in Sept. 2022. The Netflix original series was created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan.

Season 1 starred Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer who murdered people in and around the Midwest from the end of the 1970s and into the 1990s. Despite public outcry and fair criticism about the show’s treatment of victims, Monster became the fourth most popular Netflix show ever behind Squid Game, Stranger Things, and Wednesday. 

Meet the cast of Monster: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story

As the title suggests, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story will follow the story of the infamous brothers, Lyle and Erik Menendez. The brothers were convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menedez, in the late 1980s. The case, understandably, was widely covered nationwide, and the trial was incredibly complicated. The brothers accused their father of abuse, but in the end, they were sentenced to life in prison.

As of 2023, the Menendez brothers are still serving time at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California. They are both in their 50s. Though it hasn’t been confirmed, we can assume the Netflix show will chronicle the murder and the trial to follow.

According to Netflix, Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez will star in the series with Koch playing Erik and Chavez playing Lyle.

On January 15, Netflix released a fun cast announcement video revealing that No Country for Old Men star Javier Bardem had joined the cast as Jose Menendez, father of Lyle and Erik and husband of Kitty Menendez, who will be played by Chloë Sevigny. Sevigny is also set to star in the upcoming FEUD: Capote vs the Swans, while Bardem recently starred in the Netflix thriller film Reptile.

Where you’ve seen Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez before

If these two up-and-coming actors set to play the Menendez brothers look familiar, you’ve probably seen them in a show or movie. Cooper Koch appeared in the show Power Book II: Ghost, along with the movies Swallowed and They/Them. As a child, he played a minor role in the 2007 movie Fracture starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling.

Nicholas Alexander Chavez (shown right above), is best known for playing Spencer Cassadine in General Hospital, for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Young Performer in a Drama Series. Apart from that, he’s only appeared in one other title, a movie called Crushed. Though both actors are fresh to the scene, we’re sure their roles in the Netflix series will catapult them to the spotlight.

We’re getting more Monster beyond just season 2

With the popularity of Monster, Netflix almost immediately renewed the series for two more seasons. The series premiered in Sept. 2022, and Netflix announced the multi-season renewal in November of that year. That’s a quick turnaround for a Netflix renewal!

Netflix also confirmed that Monster will be an anthology series, meaning that the audience will be getting a different serial killer story in each season.

In a press release, the platform shared that the series will continue to tell stories about “other monstrous figures who have impacted society.” The series will likely focus on different serial killers from American history and their victims moving forward.

In other news, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy took a $300 million deal with Netflix back in 2018, and the contract expired at the end of June 2023. So what does that mean for Murphy’s existing shows on Netflix, specifically Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story?

Reportedly, Murphy will stay on Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez and The Watcher season 2 as a producer while creating new titles for Disney. If we hear of that changing, we’ll be sure to update this post.

That’s all we know about Monster season 2 so far. We’ll let you know more information about the new installment when we find out!