The Love Island USA host is swapping the reunion couch for a scripted asteroid colony, with Seth MacFarlane and Star Trek writer Brannon Braga building the show around her.
Ariana Madix is trading reality television for an asteroid belt. The 41-year-old Love Island USA host is set to star in Future Housewives, a scripted drama now in development at Peacock, and she's doing it as an executive producer too, not just the face in front of the camera.
The premise, reported first by THR and confirmed by Variety and Deadline, is a knowing one. Set in a colony called New Beverly Hills, the show follows wealthy socialites dealing in bioengineered beauty treatments and interplanetary feuds, until an outsider with stars in her eyes, played by Madix, wanders in and exposes how disconnected they've become. It's reality TV eating itself, dressed up as science fiction.
Brannon Braga is writing it. He's the Star Trek veteran behind stints on The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise, and he co-created Enterprise outright. Seth MacFarlane is producing through his Fuzzy Door banner, alongside Erica Huggins, with Jaron Lanier serving as co-executive producer. Universal Global Television is attached as the studio. Braga and MacFarlane have worked together before, on The Orville, which makes this pairing less of a leap than the premise suggests.
For Madix, this isn't a side gig. Future Housewives is the first scripted project out of Over Fences, the production company she launched recently, and landing both a starring role and a producer credit on her own banner's debut show is a bigger bet than a guest spot.
She's not new to scripted work exactly, just new to leading it. She's had recurring turns on NBC's St. Denis Medical and ABC's Will Trent, plus credits in the Lifetime film Buying Back My Daughter and the Roger Corman production Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader. Broadway has been her bigger scripted swing so far. She debuted there in 2024 as Roxie Hart in Chicago and is currently playing Connie Francis in Just in Time, a run that's set to continue through November 22, with Matthew Morrison returning for a few weeks as Bobby Darin in the interim.
None of this pulls her off her day job. Madix will keep hosting Love Island USA, which Peacock has already renewed for a ninth season with her back at the helm, and she's also down to host Love Island Games season three, which is pencilled in for fall 2027.
What's still unclear is timing. There's no pilot order mentioned yet, no air date, and Peacock hasn't said how many episodes it's eyeing or when cameras might roll. For a network betting on Madix's crossover appeal, the next move is turning a script and a casting announcement into an actual greenlight.
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