Love Island USA is romping back to Peacock with Season 8.
The NBCUniversal streamer has renewed the reality dating format and it will premiere in June. The move is no surprise since Season 7 of the U.S. remake of the British series became its most-watched original season ever with over 18B minutes viewed.
The show was also the number one streaming original title in the U.S. for the week of the finale and was the top streaming reality title for six consecutive weeks, per Nielsen.
Hosted by former Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix, the show, which remains in Fiji, returns on June 2, in line with last year’s premiere.
It will be joined by docuseries spinoff Love Island: Beyond the Villa, which was renewed in November. It will premiere on April 15.
Beyond the Villa will follow winners Amaya Espinal and Bryan Arenales as they return to their lives, as well as Gracyn Blackmore, Jeremiah Brown, Clarke Carraway, Hannah Fields, Pepe Garcia, Iris Kendall, TJ Palma, Andreina Santos, Chris Seeley, Belle-A Walker, Coco Watson, and Taylor Williams, and other islanders from season seven.
Both shows are produced by ITV America, while Beyond the Villa is produced in association with WPP’s Motion Entertainment. Love Island USA is exec produced by David George, Adam Sher, Ben Thursby-Palmer, Jordana Hochman, Bernie Schaeffer, James Barker, Blake Garrett, Courtney Rosenthal, Sophie Brown, Richard Cowles, Mike Spencer, Tom Gould, Ali Hill and Martin Oxley. Beyond the Villa is exec produced by George, Sher, Hochman, Oxley, Sarah Howell, Brian Appel, Tom Ciaccio, Blake Garrett and Ali Hill.
Love Island USA is one of the rare formats to grow over its long run, so much so that ITV America is using it as its test case when it comes to IP.
“Love Island acts a lot more like a sport than it does a television show,” ITV America CEO David George told Deadline. “This brand has a tremendous amount of value. We should be thinking about everything through the lens of how do we create something that creates peripheral value for us as a company. The economics of production are getting tighter and tighter. So, if you’re not trying to figure out how to make peripheral money, it’s going to be really difficult for you to continue in content.”
There’s even the possibility of a feature film based on the show.
“Why are we not taking Love Island and figuring out how we’re going to translate that into the movie world?,” George said. “There may be something going there. I can’t even begin to tell you what it is, but there are those types of conversations.”