
The new series kicks off with two episodes on January 21st, and its core idea strongly resembles the dark comedy horror film The Substance, a 2024 Best Picture nominee that garnered Oscar nods for director Coralie Fargeat and star Demi Moore. The series centers around a groundbreaking biotech product called The Beauty, which triggers dramatic physical changes – through a somewhat disturbing process involving a fleshy cocoon – transforming people who are old, sick, or considered unattractive into young, healthy, and beautiful versions of themselves. Most showrunners would likely try to distance their work from a recent, popular film. However, creator Greg Murphy is known for being bold. Interestingly, he cast Ashton Kutcher – famous both as an actor and a venture capitalist, and for marrying Demi Moore when she was 42 and he was 27 – as the mastermind behind The Beauty.