The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has three more spinoffs in the works, according to executive producer Jeff Jenkins.
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Hulu recently announced the cast of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' first-ever spinoff, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County.
And Jeff revealed in an interview with Variety that Orange County probably won't be the only Mormon Wives spinoff!
"I would say [there are] three more potential spinoffs in the pipeline right behind this one," Jeff teased.
"It's a really rich community when you have the luxury of looking all across the country."
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Jeff said producers plan to stick with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, rather than pivot to another religious group, such as The Secret Lives of Catholic Wives.
"Right now we're sticking with the Mormon faith. I suspect that every producer in town is out there pitching Lives of 'Catholic Wives,' 'Lives of Jewish Wives,' 'Lives of Islamic Wives.' But I go back to storytelling," Jeff said.
"I came up in the story department, and I guess I'm tooting our own horn, but I think we've collected the best storytellers in the business of unscripted, from our showrunners to our lead editors to our lead story people."
Jeff said his team prides itself on "creating an emotional response in the audience and telling an actual story with a hero and a beginning, middle, end, and a turn."
He insisted that the Mormon Wives franchise is "not just throwing plot at you."
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Mormon Wives, however, has faced some backlash from viewers because many of its cast members no longer practice the Mormon faith.
"It's funny because social media has really run with that, like 'there's a bunch of people who aren't Mormon.' The irony is that on the mothership in Utah, we've only got one or two Mormons left," Jeff acknowledged.
"Most of them have kind of shed their association with LDS. In this [Orange County] group, we actually have more devoted LDS members than in the mothership. Everyone on that show is connected to Mormonism in some way."
Jeff said the cast, for example, includes a woman who was raised Mormon but chose to leave the church on her own accord.
And one cast member, Bobbi Althoff, has a Mormon brother who loves the religion and has been "nudging" her to join.
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"So [Bobbi] is open to converting, but doesn't want to be pressured. Imagine if you had seven or eight women who are all LDS hardcore. Well, that's one perspective. I like having multiple perspectives," Jeff reasoned.
"We get distracted by all the noise of all the salacious stuff, but really to me they're heroes and warriors, because they really are trying to have a positive impact and help nudge this faith forward into the next century. Even if it's just a micro change. I think they're succeeding."
On how Hulu and the Mormon Wives creative team came to settle on developing the Orange County spinoff, Jeff told Variety that they searched all across America for different groups of the Mormon faith.
"There are a handful of pockets in America that are really the home base for LDS, and one of them was Orange County," Jeff shared.
"I think one of the little exciting threads is that [OG Mormon Wives star Mayci Neeley] from the mothership, her sister is right here in Orange County, and she's a dedicated member of the LDS faith."
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Jeff shared how producers wanted to "present a world of LDS" that was "at least a 90 degree pivot away" from the original, Utah-based The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives series.
"When you're in Utah, that's a very specific type of culture. LDS in Southern California is a little more relaxed, a little less intense, a little more forgiving," Jeff explained.
"So, I think when subscribers see this, they're going to have some familiarity with some of the themes, but it's also going to be radically different."
Jeff also said it helps that most of the cast members are social media influencers with a built-in fanbase.
"For better or worse, absolutely, I think [that makes] the [show] better. If you have a cast member who's got 2, 3, 4 million followers, some healthy percentage of those followers is going to come and at least check out your new show," Jeff said.
"The flip side of that is, they are watching, and because they love that person that they follow on social media, there better not be any fakery or trickery or bullsh-t with this show."
Jeff therefore said "it challenges" producers "to be very transparent with everything."
"The show continues on [cast members'] social media after every episode. It continues when we're on break between shooting seasons. There's almost no distinction between the show and the immediacy of the social media," Jeff explained.
"So it's forced us to be even more pristine and transparent about the way that we're documenting these lives."
Jeff also teased that The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives will pick up production on Season 5 "very soon" after Taylor Frankie Paul's legal troubles with ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen.