Penn Badgley Is Trading Serial Killing for Sleuthing in Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Penn Badgley is returning to the world of murder mysteries, but this time he will be trying to solve the crime rather than commit it.

The You star has been cast as the lead in Prime Video’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a darkly comic series based on Benjamin Stevenson’s bestselling mystery novel. Amazon MGM Studios has ordered the project to series, with Badgley also serving as an executive producer.

For viewers who watched Badgley spend five seasons as the increasingly disturbing serial killer Joe Goldberg in Netflix’s You, the new role offers a very different take on the actor’s familiar murder-mystery territory. This time, he will be on the other side of the investigation.

A family reunion turns deadly

Badgley will play Ern Cunningham, a mystery-writing expert who reluctantly returns to the mountains of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom for a family reunion.

The reason for the gathering is his brother Michael’s release from prison. There is already considerable tension between the brothers: Ern was the person who helped put Michael behind bars.

Things become considerably more complicated when a frozen body is discovered.

A snowstorm then traps the family together, and the situation quickly spirals as more deaths follow. The central premise is as dark as the title suggests: everyone in Ern’s family has killed someone before, whether by accident or deliberately.

The combination of an isolated setting, a suspicious family and a growing body count gives the series a classic whodunit setup, while its darkly comic tone sets it apart from a straightforward crime drama.

From serial killer to amateur detective

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone has been described as a meeting point between the classic mystery traditions of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle and the more contemporary sensibilities of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club.

That makes Ern a particularly fitting role for Badgley. Rather than playing another killer, he will be investigating the deaths around him while navigating the complicated secrets within his own family.

The original novel, published in 2022, is the first book in Benjamin Stevenson’s Ernest Cunningham mystery series. The television adaptation is being developed as a dark comedy murder mystery for Prime Video.

David Hemingson leads the creative team

Academy Award nominee David Hemingson is attached as showrunner and executive producer. He is best known for writing The Holdovers, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Hemingson will executive produce alongside Badgley, Stevenson, Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, Jeanne Snow and Molly Allen. The series is being produced by Fifth Season and Made Up Stories, with Amazon MGM Studios involved in the production.

For Badgley, the project also marks another collaboration with the mystery and thriller genre after his five-season run as Joe Goldberg in You. His new character, however, comes with a very different set of problems: Ern has to uncover the truth about the deaths around him while dealing with a family in which practically everyone has their own connection to murder.

Who else will star?

For now, Badgley is the only announced cast member. Further casting details have yet to be revealed, and there is currently no release date or trailer for the series.

The series is still in development, so viewers will have to wait before Ern Cunningham and his deeply dysfunctional family arrive on Prime Video.

For Badgley, though, the premise offers a welcome change of perspective: after years of playing a man whose secrets drive the murders, he will now be the mystery writer trying to figure out who is responsible.