Two years after leaving his iconic spot as host of The Late Show on CBS, David Letterman will be returning to television. Letterman made a deal with Netflix to launch a new talk show with the streaming service, which would feature both studio interviews and segments filmed elsewhere. The Hollywood Reporter broke the story early Monday morning.
The series, which does not yet have a title, will have six episodes that will all be prerecorded before airing. Letterman will only have one guest per episode. There is no official guest list as of yet.
Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, offered an enthusiastic statement on the project. “Just meeting David Letterman was a thrill; imagine how exciting it is for me to announce that we will be working together,” Sarandos said. “David Letterman is a true television icon, and I can’t wait to see him out in the wild, out from behind the desk and interviewing the people he finds most interesting. We’ll have to see if he keeps the beard.”
Letterman himself joked, “I feel excited and lucky to be working on this project for Netflix. Here’s what I have learned, if you retire to spend more time with your family, check with your family first.”
Letterman worked as host to both NBC’s Late Night and CBS’ The Late Show for more than 30 years. He won 10 Emmy Awards and garnered 52 nominations over the decades of working as a writer, producer, and host. The acclaimed entertainer announced his retirement in the spring of 2014 and officially said goodbye to The Late Show in 2015, with Stephen Colbert taking over as host.
The new series will join Chelsea Handler’s weekly talk show Chelsea, which departs from the traditional Netflix release format of having the entire season online at once and releases one episode a week. Letterman’s show is expected to follow this format as well.
The series is expected to premiere on Netflix sometime in 2018.