When it came to launching the second iteration of the Kardashian family’s reality show, this time on Hulu, new executive producer Ben Winston had a couple of goals for updating the show from the previous E! version.
“One of the things I really wanted to do was bring down that window of when things happen to when they air,” he told The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s Los Angeles premiere on April 7. But, when viewers watch the first episode of The Kardashians, they will see Kim single (now dating Pete Davidson), Kourtney dating Travis Barker (now engaged and not-yet-legally married), Khloe maintaining some sort of relationship with Tristan Thompson (now with romantic ties firmly cut) and Kylie pregnant (she gave birth to her son in February) — all filmed around October, with much having changed by April.
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While Winston once hoped to turn around footage “within a week or two or a month or two,” “it just became really difficult to do that,” he explained. “First from when we started filming to when it was right to launch on Hulu, there’s marketing and press involved and events like this, so that hasn’t really happened. It’s also really difficult because there’s six of them and there’s six storylines at any one time. There’s a whole process.” So for now, the show will continue to see the family’s events months after the headlines, as the Kardashian-Jenners were already filming the second season before the first even aired.
One big change viewers will notice, though, is the shooting style, opting for drone footage, a new soundtrack and more casual one-on-one interviews than the traditional sitdowns of the former show. Winston and his Fulwell 73 production company had never made a reality show prior to The Kardashians, and the EP revealed the series he turned to for inspiration, including Netflix’s Made in Mexico and The Parisian Agency, as well as the Million Dollar Listing background of showrunner Danielle King.
“I was a bit nervous about doing [the show], I lost a lot of hours of sleep. Between the time Kim called me and asked us whether we’d do it to finding Danielle I didn’t sleep very well,” Winston admitted, and then upon meeting King, “I didn’t tell her until the third time I met her what project we were meeting her about because I just wanted to get to know her first as a showrunner. On the third and final meeting I said, ‘It’s about the Kardashians’ and I didn’t know if she’d be like, ‘That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard’ or ‘I don’t know, that’s not for me.’ But she was incredibly excited and inspired by it because I think ultimately, in this genre, they are the greatest of all time. They are the G.O.A.T.s of this genre.”
And while Winston said his wife, a longtime fan of the E! series, has been his harshest critic, he hopes the new series will appeal to both old and new viewers.
“For us I think it was a real challenge of what we could bring to it. The last show was amazing, so even if we just made that, it would be great,” Winston said. “But I hope that people feel the stories are more exciting now, I think the way it’s shot is exciting, the soundtrack is great — I hope we’ve brought some elevated feel to the show that will mean their fans feel like it is still the show they fell in love with, but then also on Hulu can find a whole new audience as well.”
The Kardashians premiere episode is now streaming on Hulu.
