What popular word game is getting a TV adaptation? You have six guesses.
Jimmy Fallon is set to produce a Wordle game show for NBC, with the network testing a pilot hosted by “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie. The show, filming in the U.K., will bring The New York Times’ daily word quiz from phone screens to TV screens, testing players in a game show adaptation.
Wordle took the world by storm in the early 2020s, offering a daily chance for players to correctly identify a random five-letter word in just six guesses. Every time players submit a guess, color-coordinated boxes reveal what letters are correctly placed in the answer word, what letters are in the wrong place and what letters aren’t in the answer word at all — à la Mastermind.
It was initially created by engineer Josh Wardle as a game shared between himself and his partner. However, it quickly grew into a piece of worldwide community-building, with all players of the online puzzle attempting to locate the same daily word. Emoji grids of colored boxes soon flooded social media and text messages, with players sharing their own paths to victory — or defeat — for each daily quiz.
The New York Times quickly bought the rights to the puzzle in 2022 for seven figures, eventually folding it into the NYT Games platform that hosts their famous daily crossword. Wordle reached 5.3 billion plays for the year of 2024.
Fallon’s Electric Hot Dog will produce the series alongside The New York Times and Universal Television Alternative Studio. The comedian’s attachment makes sense, as the “Tonight Show” host has built a brand on playing light games with his late night guests. During the early Wordle craze in 2022, Fallon even made a seven-minute segment out of solving a single puzzle.
If it goes to air, Wordle would join a list of Fallon-produced game shows like “Password,” “That’s My Jam” and, most recently, the reality show “On Brand.” It is unclear how a live game show version of the daily quiz would function — though Hasbro did develop a Wordle board game in 2022.
