Scarlett Johansson Producing 'The Nanny Diaries' Series at Netflix

Netflix is bringing The Nanny Diaries to television, with Scarlett Johansson signed on as executive producer. The project is set up at Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television.

The source material is the 2002 novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list and hasn’t been out of print since. You can find the original edition at the Internet Archive’s open library. Johansson already has history with this property. She starred in the 2007 feature film adaptation, which means her role here isn’t a branding exercise. It’s a creative return.

Amy Chozick and Jenny Bicks are writing the series. That pairing is worth attention. Chozick built her reputation at the New York Times and wrote Chasing Hillary, her account of covering the 2016 presidential campaign from inside Clinton’s press corps. Bicks has deep television credits. Together they don’t suggest a soft, nostalgia-forward take on the material. The book was a satirical dissection of wealthy Manhattan family life, told through a young woman hired to raise a child she’d come to love more than the parents ever did. That critique doesn’t soften with age. It sharpens.

Greg Berlanti’s company is producing alongside Warner Bros. Television, where Berlanti Productions holds an overall deal. For anyone paying attention to the Warner Bros. lot here in Burbank, that relationship has been one of the most consistent job generators in the building for years. A new series at Netflix keeps stages filled and crew employed. Not abstract. Real work.

The Writers Guild of America reported in 2025 stronger demand for experienced drama writers on feature-adapted projects, and this one checks every box in that category: two credited novelists, a feature history going back to 2007, and a showrunner-level writing team with both journalism and prestige television on their resumes.

The 2007 film had Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti alongside Johansson and performed modestly against its budget. Netflix gives this version something the theatrical release couldn’t manufacture: direct access to the exact audience that read the book in 2002 and 2007, who are now in their late thirties and forties, hold Netflix subscriptions, and have their own complicated feelings about class, labor, and the specific exhaustion of working for people who’ve never once worried about rent.

Johansson’s producing work has become a more prominent part of her public profile. She’s not attaching her name to collect a fee. Her credit as executive producer on this project, confirmed by Deadline Hollywood under story ID 1236865462, reflects the hands-on role she’s taken elsewhere. “We’re treating this as a full creative collaboration, not a brand extension,” a production spokesperson said of the team’s approach to the adaptation.

Studios notice the difference between a producer who’s in the room and one who isn’t.

Berlanti’s operation spent most of the last decade running superhero franchises and broadcast procedurals at enormous volume. A literary drama series for Netflix is a different category of project for the company, and it signals that Berlanti Productions isn’t content to stay in one lane. The 300-plus episodes Greg Berlanti’s team has put on the air over the past decade built the infrastructure. A project like this uses it differently.

The novel, published in 2002, sold on the strength of a premise that felt both comic and cutting: a young woman named Nan takes a job caring for a four-year-old in a Park Avenue household and discovers that the child’s parents treat her as invisible while the child treats her as the only stable adult in his life. McLaughlin and Kraus drew on their own nannying experiences. The book’s specificity is what made it land, and it’s what a television format, with room to develop across episodes, can actually honor in a way a 106-minute film can’t.

The series doesn’t have a premiere date confirmed for 2026, but development is active.