Hulu grabbed the rights for Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale and will be developing it for the small screen.
Margaret Atwood first published her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, in 1985. Since then, The Handmaid’s Tale has become a perennial best-seller, earned its place on the required reading list of nearly every single high school across the country and been the basis for one of Hulu’s best series.
In September — 34 years after the first book was published — Atwood will publish a sequel to the story titled The Testaments. Ahead of its September 10 release date, MGM and Hulu announced earlier this afternoon that they will develop The Testaments into a TV series.
In fact, showrunner Bruce Miller is already in discussion for how the sequel can become “an important extension” to the Elizabeth Moss-starring, Emmy-winning drama, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Hulu renewed the series during the back half of the third season, which ended with a controversial cliffhanger that will change the shape of the series.
The Testaments occurs more than 15 years after the ending of the The Handmaid’s Tale novel. As the series has gone beyond the source material after its first season, showrunner Bruce Miller was certain that The Testaments would directly impact the trajectory of the show.
In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Atwood discussed details about The Handmaid’s Tale sequel. Rather than being told from Offred’s perspective, The Testaments will be narrated by three other women connected to Gilead: a young woman who was raised in Gilead; a Canadian teen who learns she was born in Gilead; and Aunt Lydia, who readers and viewers know as the villain of the series.
The book will certainly give the show more to work with. As Atwood said: “They can’t keep Offred in Gilead for many more seasons, or a certain amount of wheel spinning will be going on. They have to move her along — and I’ve given them lots of ways of how that would happen.”
Currently, there is no return date set yet for The Handmaid’s Tale season 4.