Scarlett Johansson Producing 'The Nanny Diaries' Series at Netflix

Netflix is developing a series adaptation of The Nanny Diaries, with Scarlett Johansson attached as executive producer on the project, which comes from Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television.

The show is based on the number-one New York Times bestseller by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Johansson starred in the 2007 feature film version, so her return to the property carries real creative weight rather than just marquee value. Amy Chozick and Jenny Bicks are writing the series. Berlanti Productions, the company run by Greg Berlanti, is producing alongside Warner Bros. Television, where Berlanti Productions holds an overall deal.

For anyone tracking the Warner Bros. lot here in Burbank, this one matters. Berlanti Productions has become one of the most productive tenants Warner Bros. Television has, and a new series order keeps crew working and stages occupied. That’s not abstract. It’s jobs.

Greg Berlanti’s operation has spent the better part of the last decade building a television empire, largely through superhero franchises and broadcast procedurals. A prestige limited series or drama for Netflix represents a different gear for the company, one that plays to the kind of adult literary adaptation the streaming era rewards. The Writers Guild of America recently reported stronger demand for experienced feature-adapted drama writers, and a project like this, with two credited novelists and a feature history behind it, lands squarely in that category.

Chozick is best known for her journalism and her book Chasing Hillary, a sharp inside account of the 2016 presidential campaign. Bicks has serious television credits, including work on Sex and the City. The pairing suggests the show won’t treat the source material as a simple nostalgia play. McLaughlin and Kraus wrote a satirical portrait of Manhattan’s upper class as seen through the eyes of a young woman hired to raise a wealthy family’s child, and that social critique has aged, if anything, more pointedly than the original readers expected.

The 2007 film, which also starred Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti, performed modestly at the box office. Netflix gives this version something the theatrical release never had: a direct line to the audience that grew up reading the book and is now in its late thirties and forties, with disposable income, a Netflix subscription, and a long memory for the specific misery of working for wealthy Manhattan families.

Johansson’s producing profile has grown steadily since her acting career hit its peak. She’s not just lending her name here. Her attachment as executive producer, as confirmed by Deadline Hollywood, signals the kind of hands-on creative role she’s taken with other projects. That distinction matters when a studio is greenlighting. A producer who shows up versus one who takes a credit and disappears changes how a writers’ room gets built and how a showrunner gets supported.

Warner Bros. Television’s Burbank campus has had a complicated few years navigating the merger landscape that followed the Warner Bros. Discovery combination. New leadership has pushed harder for streaming partnerships that don’t exclusively feed Max. A Netflix deal through Berlanti Productions represents exactly that kind of outside revenue, the sort of arrangement that justifies keeping development pipelines running and keeping the physical infrastructure at the Olive corridor studios busy.

No casting has been announced for the lead role. The central character, referred to as “Nan” in the original novel, is the engine of the series. Whoever Netflix and the producers cast will face the immediate comparison to Johansson’s 2007 performance, though a television format gives the story room the film never had. The original book ran to more than 300 pages and covered months of domestic tension, social humiliation, and class observation that a 106-minute movie compressed into a single narrative arc. A series can let that breathe.

The Internet Archive’s open library records the novel’s publication history going back to 2002, when McLaughlin and Kraus first introduced Nan and the Park Avenue family she works for. The book spent more than a year on bestseller lists and generated a sequel, Nanny Returns, in 2009. Whether the Netflix series draws on either book or charts its own course within the established world isn’t confirmed yet.

What is confirmed: Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television, and one of Hollywood’s most recognizable producers are all pointed at the same project, and Netflix is spending development money to find out if a two-decade-old novel still has a series in it.