Netflix has been working on this particular game show for a while at this point; we reported back in July of 2025 that the streamer had initiated a “bake-off” between dozens of production companies after securing the rights to the board game franchise from Hasbro. (Bake-off is industry-speak for the corporate entertainment version of asking a big pool of unpaid artists to do a ton of work on your behalf coming up with ideas for stuff, so that you can just pick one out of the pile; Netflix reportedly pulled in about 50 different companies to pitch it with Monopoly ideas.) The streamer ultimately settled on Studio Lambert, the British TV studio that’s had massive hits running both the British and American versions of The Traitors. The studio also has its own history with Netflix, having been responsible for shows like The Circle and making the “meh”st of a bad idea with Squid Game: The Challenge in 2023 and 2025.
Tragically, the reporting on the bake-off does not include details about any of the various pitches, which we would dearly like to hear—because it’s hard to imagine something more weirdly pleasant than sitting down with a big list of ideas from 50 teams of television professionals desperately trying to make watchable TV out of America’s most “Quit At Hour 3 As Things Transition Into A Big Family Argument” past-time. Deadline does note that even some of the losers in the contest were winners—a novel concept for the Monopoly formula, where, at least on a spiritual level, everybody loses. While Studio Lambert got the actual gig, several of the pitchers apparently had good enough ideas about what to do with the big top hat or whatever that Netflix has tapped them to begin development on other, non-Monopoly projects. As for the show itself, there’s no word yet on what Lambert’s version will entail—although if it doesn’t involve Alan Cumming walking around as the world’s most glammed-up version of Rich Uncle Pennybags, we’re going to be sorely disappointed.
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