Hollywood Turned Down ‘Suits’ Spinoff Years Ago—Including Netflix

Suits blew up after it was acquired and released on Netflix this past summer. The overwhelming success of the legal drama even prompted the creation of a new spinoff set within the same universe. Now, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is opening up about how he was presented with the concept for the new show several years before the O.G. series’ popularity on Netflix.

At the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, Sarandos said Suits creator Aaron Korsh pitched them his new show years ago. However, Netflix — and the rest of Hollywood — turned him down.

“For the last several years, the guy that created Suits had a spinoff show that he was trying to sell everywhere in town. Everybody passed, including us, and including [NBCUniversal], and now they’re making it,” Sarandos said, according to IndieWire. “There’s a huge, newer interest in ‘Suits.’ And I would probably argue that next year you’ll probably see a bunch of lawyer shows.”

He continued, “I think we’ve added a ton of value when you license to Netflix, value that you can then turn into something else. ‘Suits’ itself, we added a ton of value to that IP. So the creators get a bunch of benefit from it, the owners of the IP get a bunch of benefit from it, and more importantly the fans get a bunch of benefit from it from having this show that otherwise would’ve disappeared into obscurity.”

The new legal drama — now in development at Universal Studio Group’s UCP — will be set in the same time frame as the original. It will have entirely new characters and take place in Los Angeles. Beatrice Springborn, president of Universal International Studios and UCP, said that the spinoff will “have the same energy and good looking people that the original did.”

“We are working on it right now,” Springborn told the audience at U.K. industry conference Content London, per Variety. “It’s so fun and happy.” She added that a returning show like Suits was now attractive to buyers. “A lot of streamers are looking for ongoing series, things that feel easy to watch,” she explained. “Our show ‘Suits’ is incredibly huge on Netflix.”

Suits is USA Network’s legal drama created and written by Aaron Korsh. The show premiered in 2011 and ran for nine seasons until 2019. It starred Patrick J. Adams, Gabriel Macht, Rick Hoffman, Meghan Markle, Gina Torres and Sarah Rafferty.

Since launching on Netflix on June 17, 2023, it spent 12 weeks at the top of Nielsen’s overall streaming chart, earning more than 2.3 billion viewing minutes week after week. Additionally, Suits first season spent 11 weeks on Netflix’s Top 10 TV series (U.S.).

Meghan Markle, who played paralegal Rachel Zane, recently weighed in on Suits’ success after being informed that the legal drama accumulated more than 45 billion minutes of streams on Netflix and Peacock combined, per Nielsen’s streaming report.

“Isn’t that wild? Is that right?” The Duchess of Sussex said when asked at Variety’s Power of Women event in Los Angeles on Nov. 26. As for her thoughts on the “renewed love” for the show, she said, “I have no idea. It was great to work on, such a great cast and crew. We had a really fun time. I was on it for seven seasons, so quite a bit.”