Charlie Hunnam Wants Netflix’s Monster to Tackle Roy DeMeo
Mobsters DailyRoy DeMeo in an FBI photograph dated July 14, 1981. Photograph by the FBI Newark Field Office, via Wikimedia Commons; a public-domain United States federal government work.
Charlie Hunnam wants Netflix’s Monster anthology to take on Roy DeMeo, the Gambino crime family figure whose Brooklyn crew became synonymous with murder and disappearing bodies. In an interview published by Entertainment Weekly on September 16, 2026, Hunnam said he had already raised the idea with series producer Ryan Murphy.
The important catch is that Netflix has not announced a Roy DeMeo season. Hunnam called the story compelling territory, but his account of Murphy’s response suggests the producer is not currently eager to take Monster into the Mafia world. For now, this is an actor’s pitch—not a production order, casting announcement or renewal.
What to know about Charlie Hunnam’s Roy DeMeo idea
- The proposal: Hunnam said he would like Monster to examine Roy DeMeo and the violent Gambino crew that operated around Brooklyn’s Gemini Lounge.
- The status: Netflix and Ryan Murphy have not announced a DeMeo installment, and Hunnam indicated Murphy was not particularly interested in organized-crime territory.
- The inspiration: Hunnam said listening to Sammy “The Bull” Gravano discuss DeMeo on the Our Thing podcast helped spark the idea.
The timing gives the pitch extra visibility. Hunnam previously played Ed Gein in the anthology and returned for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, which arrived on Netflix on September 17. His relationship with the franchise makes the suggestion more substantial than random fan casting, but it still does not mean development has begun.
Hunnam sees “fertile territory” in the DeMeo story
Hunnam told Entertainment Weekly that DeMeo’s world seemed like “interesting fertile territory to explore.” He connected his interest to Gravano’s podcast stories about DeMeo, a man whose reputation for extreme violence frightened people inside the Mafia as well as outside it.
The actor also supplied the reason audiences should temper their expectations. According to Hunnam, Murphy is “not really interested in that world necessarily.” That is not a categorical promise that the concept can never happen, but it is the opposite of an official green light.
There is no reported script, director, production schedule or cast. Hunnam did not say he had been selected to play DeMeo, and Netflix has not identified the Gambino figure as a future Monster subject.
That distinction matters because entertainment headlines often turn a performer’s preferred project into a supposed announcement. What happened here is simpler: an actor closely associated with the anthology named the Mafia story he would like to explore, and the producer he approached did not share the same enthusiasm.
Who was Roy DeMeo?
Roy DeMeo was a Gambino crime family member who led a crew active in New York during the 1970s and early 1980s. The group operated through car theft, loansharking, drug trafficking and other rackets while developing an especially brutal reputation for murder.
The crew’s name became inseparable from the Gemini Lounge in Brooklyn. Cooperating witnesses later described a systematic process for killing victims and disposing of their remains, commonly called the “Gemini Method.” The method’s purpose was not theatrical violence; it was to make people disappear and reduce the evidence left for investigators.
The often-repeated estimate that DeMeo and his crew were responsible for as many as 200 killings should be treated as an estimate, not a judicial body count. The Mob Museum uses the figure while explaining that DeMeo’s organization operated with unusual frequency and secrecy. Later federal prosecutions established racketeering and murder cases against surviving crew members, but not every disappearance attributed to the group was individually proved in court.
DeMeo belonged to one branch of the larger structure explained in our guide to New York’s Five Families. His immediate superior was Anthony “Nino” Gaggi, while Gambino boss Paul Castellano ultimately viewed DeMeo as a dangerous liability as investigators moved closer to the crew.
DeMeo’s own ending already has the shape of a Monster finale
By early 1983, law enforcement pressure was mounting and DeMeo reportedly feared that his own organization had marked him for death. He disappeared on January 10. Ten days later, authorities found his frozen body in the trunk of a Cadillac in Brooklyn. He had been shot repeatedly.
The Mob Museum attributes the order to Castellano and describes the killing as having been carried out from within DeMeo’s own circle. The exact mechanics have accumulated competing accounts, so a responsible dramatization would need to distinguish documented facts from later underworld recollections.
The irony is difficult to miss. A man associated with making victims vanish was himself left where his body would be found. The organization that had benefited from his violence discarded him when that same violence threatened to draw investigators higher up the hierarchy.
That institutional fear helps connect DeMeo’s story to the later cases that transformed the Mafia. Our history of the Mafia Commission Trial explains how federal prosecutors eventually used racketeering law to target leadership rather than treating each killing or racket as an isolated crime.
Why DeMeo fits Monster—and why the series would need restraint
On the surface, the fit is obvious. DeMeo offers a notorious central figure, a recognizable criminal organization, cooperating witnesses, family conflict, an expanding investigation and a violent ending. His story also allows an anthology to move beyond the isolated-killer model and examine how an entire institution enables violence.
That broader frame would be essential. Reducing the DeMeo crew to a tally of bodies and a gruesome disposal procedure would turn victims into set decoration. The more revealing story concerns how money, hierarchy and silence allowed the crew to operate—and how associates rationalized what they knew until prosecution or personal danger changed their loyalties.
Hunnam’s reference to Gravano creates another layer. Gravano became one of the most consequential cooperating witnesses in modern Mafia history after rising to Gambino underboss. MobstersDaily’s profile of Sammy Gravano’s break with John Gotti shows why his recollections attract attention while also requiring the caution applied to any participant telling stories about a criminal world that rewarded secrecy and self-preservation.
A DeMeo season would also face the standard true-crime problem: how to portray an infamous killer without converting infamy into glamour. The strongest version would spend less time admiring criminal efficiency and more time examining the victims, witnesses, relatives and investigators forced to live with its consequences.
No Roy DeMeo season has been announced
As of September 17, 2026, the confirmed news is limited but genuinely interesting: Charlie Hunnam publicly pitched Roy DeMeo as a future Monster subject, explained where the idea came from and acknowledged Ryan Murphy’s lack of enthusiasm for the Mafia setting.
Nothing in the interview confirms that Hunnam would play DeMeo or that Netflix has commissioned the story. A future change of direction remains possible, especially if the pitch draws audience interest, but there is currently no release date, episode count or production timetable to report.
For MobstersDaily readers, the appeal is clear. DeMeo’s story sits where Mafia history, true crime and prestige television collide. It has the scale and darkness the anthology favors, but it would demand exceptional discipline to separate convictions from allegations and human tragedy from criminal mythology.
Hunnam has opened the door. Murphy and Netflix have not walked through it.