ViacomCBS streaming service BET+ has announced that its First Wives Club series adaptation has been renewed for a second season.
“Tracy Oliver’s First Wives Club has been hugely successful on BET Plus, served as one of our signature originals at launch and helped us quickly become the largest African American focused SVOD service,” said Devin Griffin, general manager of BET Plus. “Our subscribers loved season one and are eagerly awaiting season two.”
Based on the 1996 comedy starring Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler, with Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip) developing for television, First Wives Club follows best friends Ari (Ryan Michelle Bathe), Hazel (Jill Scott), and Bree (Michelle Buteau) as they reunite to help each other through rough patches in their lives. Their experiences dealing with music superstar Hazel’s tabloid-friendly divorce, campaign manager Ari’s unsatisfying marriage, and orthopedic surgeon Bree’s cheating husband bring them closer together and remind them that all they need to make it through life is each other.
First Wives Club had a wild ride through development, as it was originally put into development by TV Land in 2016 with a different writer (Rebecca Addelman) and cast (Alyson Hannigan, Megan Hilty, and Vanessa Lachey). TV Land eventually passed as they were slowly phasing out scripted content, but Viacom sibling Paramount Network put a new take on the concept in development with Oliver in October 2017. It received a series order in April 2018 and by November, had shifted networks again, this time to BET. Come June 2019, though, Viacom decided to use First Wives Club to help launch fledgling streaming service BET Plus, which debuted that September.
The renewal of First Wives Club comes shortly after fellow BET Plus original Bigger received its own second season. The streamer just debuted their third original, a spinoff of Tyler Perry’s The Oval entitled Ruthless, on February 20th, with another Perry show entitled Bruh coming later this year.
Production on season two of First Wives Club is set to begin this September in Atlanta.
