Jon Bernthal's 'The Bottoms' is in active development at FX
Jon Bernthal’s long-gestating series The Bottoms is in active development at FX after more than a decade. For readers tracking john bernthal news, the actor paid to keep the rights, wrote the Shreveport-inspired show himself, and says recent writing credits helped executives see him as a creator.
Key Takeaways
- The Bottoms is in active development at FX after more than 10 years of effort.
- Bernthal rejected an earlier script, paid out a prior writer, and took over the writing himself.
- The series grew out of time he spent in Shreveport, Louisiana, and previously had an Amazon incarnation.
- FX has not announced a cast, production timeline, or further story details.
- Co-writing The Punisher: One Last Kill and The Bear episode Gary helped shift how executives view him.
According to The Playlist, Bernthal spent much of the past year expanding beyond acting before the FX breakthrough. That creative push now appears to be unlocking a passion project he has chased for over a decade. For more celebrity news, follow BlasterPost’s Celebrity Breaking News hub.
What is Jon Bernthal’s The Bottoms project at FX?
The Bottoms is a television series Bernthal has been trying to make for more than a decade. The Playlist reports it is currently in active development at FX. Bernthal has said the idea grew out of extensive time he spent in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Story specifics remain limited. FX has not announced a cast, a production schedule, or additional plot details, and the project is described as only recently back on its feet after years of limbo.
Why did john bernthal rewrite The Bottoms himself?
The project’s path was rocky. It previously had an incarnation at Amazon and a script from an unnamed high-profile writer that Bernthal ultimately rejected. He felt that writer had not sufficiently engaged with the Shreveport community that inspired the series.
Unhappy with the result, Bernthal said he paid out the writer’s fee so he could retain the rights and write the show himself. “My agents thought I was out of my mind, but I was like, ‘I want to do this on my own now,’” he said. “And that’s what I did.”
How did Bernthal’s recent writing change the conversation?
His first official writing credit came on The Punisher: One Last Kill, which he co-wrote with Reinaldo Marcus Green. Weeks later, he co-wrote Gary, a standalone The Bear prequel episode, with Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
Bernthal said the response to Gary changed how executives saw him. “They’re like, ‘OK, now we’re looking at you as a creator,’” he recalled. That shift matters for an actor long known as a “soldier for the story” alongside filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Denis Villeneuve, James Mangold, Ava DuVernay, and Christopher Nolan.
Separately, Bernthal remains a major MCU talking point: a recent report relayed unverified claims he could return as the Punisher in Avengers: Secret Wars, though Marvel has not confirmed that rumor.
After a rejected script, an Amazon stop, and a decade of persistence, The Bottoms finally looks alive again at FX—still without a greenlight announcement, but with Bernthal’s own pages and renewed studio interest behind it.