Ashley Madison: TV drama based on hacked website in the works

A TV drama inspired by the recently hacked infidelity website Ashley Madison is currently being pitched to US networks, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The series, tentatively titled Thank You Ashley Madison, will fictionalise the story of the website’s creation, changing the identity of its founder, Noel Biderman, to that of a mother who launches the company in order to support her family. It will also focus on the sex lives of users of the website, whose tagline is “Life is short. Have an affair.”

Thank You Ashley Madison is being produced by OutEast Entertainment and Canadian production company Marblemedia, with Biderman involved as an executive producer. Marblemedia co-CEO Matt Hornburg told the Hollywood Reporter: “We are in the early stages of developing a scripted series inspired by the site which, given the events from the past week, make the themes explored more timely.”

The travails of Ashley Madison have been a regular fixture in the news over the past month. In July, the website – which facilitates members’ extramarital affairs – was hacked by a group calling itself the Impact Team, who threatened to release the details of its 37 million members unless the website was taken offline. On 19 August, they followed through on their threat, releasing the names, email addresses, phone numbers and partial credit card numbers of its members, among them former reality TV star Josh Duggar.

Thank You Ashley Madison was initially announced last year, before the current hacking scandal around the website came to light, though OutEast Entertainment partner Courtney Hazlett claims that the issue will likely be depicted in some form.

Speaking about the series Hazlett said: “There are a lot of TV shows doing a great job of presenting marriage storylines in new ways, but what we’re positing here is: what if there is a third lane to run in and what if you were honest about it? No shows on television are offering that,” he added.