Savannah Guthrie is stepping into primetime under deeply bittersweet circumstances. The longtime “Today” anchor will host a new game show adaptation of Wordle for NBC, the network confirmed on Monday, May 11, 2026 — an announcement that arrived on the same day her mother’s disappearance reached the 100-day mark.
Jimmy Fallon, whose production company Electric Hot Dog will co-produce the series with The New York Times, stopped by “Today” to unveil the long-gestating project alongside Guthrie. The series, based on the wildly popular five-letter word puzzle, will film in Manchester, England, and air in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
“We’ve been developing Wordle as a game show for the past two and a half years with the New York Times, and it’s official, we are making a Wordle game show with our host, Savannah Guthrie!” Fallon said on the show.
The half-hour episodes will replicate the game’s signature typeface and green-and-yellow color scheme, and contestants will compete for a cash prize. Casting for the first season is already open through the official casting site, with a deadline of May 29 at 5 p.m. PT. Production begins later this summer, and the show is scheduled to premiere in 2027.
A Project Paused by Personal Tragedy
The announcement carries unmistakable weight. Filming was originally meant to begin in March 2026, but the production halted after Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy, disappeared in February. Guthrie took an extended leave from “Today,” returning to the morning desk on April 6. Nancy Guthrie remains missing.
Guthrie has previously spoken about how Wordle served as a daily point of connection between her and her mother — a small ritual that now sits at the emotional center of the project she is about to lead. On Monday, she thanked NBC, Fallon, The New York Times and Universal for halting the production rather than recasting or moving on without her.
“When everything happened with me and my family, they just stopped everything and said, ‘We’ll wait for you,'” Guthrie said. “And Hollywood is like a really tough business, as you know, and I didn’t expect that. And I just want to say, thank you. It means so much to me.”
Fallon responded that the show would not move forward without her. Guthrie, visibly emotional, told viewers she remains “determined to put one foot in front of the other.”
How Guthrie Landed the Job
Her path to the host’s podium has been years in the making. In March 2025, Guthrie solved a mega-sized Wordle puzzle on the Mega-Zilla screen in Times Square, an event she described as “every word nerd’s dream and possible nightmare.” Before tackling the giant board, she visited The New York Times’ offices for a behind-the-scenes look at how the puzzles are crafted. Carson Daly floated the idea of a Wordle game show on air at the time, and Guthrie embraced it.
A pilot was eventually filmed, and Fallon said the search for a host ended quickly once Guthrie stepped in. In an exclusive interview with TODAY, Fallon described the casting calculus bluntly: “We were looking, we’re like, ‘Who’s the perfect host for this? We need to have someone that looks like they play Wordle, someone that knows how to run a show and host it.’ And we did the pilot, and you are amazing.”
Daly, reacting to the announcement on “Today,” called his colleague a natural fit. “She’s a perfect host. Loves games, super smart, awesome on TV. It’s going to be great,” he said.
From Indie Puzzle to Primetime
Wordle’s journey to network television is one of the more improbable arcs in recent gaming history. Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle created the game in 2021 as a personal project before The New York Times acquired it in 2022 — the same year “Wordle” became the most Googled word on the internet. Inspired by the 1970s board game Mastermind, the rules are deceptively simple: six attempts to guess a five-letter word, with colored tiles offering the only feedback. A single puzzle drops every day, and every player worldwide chases the same answer.
Wardle himself has stayed at arm’s length from the phenomenon he created. “I haven’t played since the day I sold it,” he recently told The Sunday Times.
The Times’ partnership with NBC marks a notable expansion of the newspaper’s games division, which has poured resources into the Crossword, Spelling Bee and Wordle apps in recent years. Translating a solo, two-minute browser puzzle into a half-hour competitive format will require invention, but Fallon insisted the pilot proved the concept.
“Savannah has that rare combination of intelligence, charm, and warmth that makes everyone feel instantly welcome,” Fallon said in a statement released Monday.
For Guthrie, the new role arrives as she continues to navigate an unresolved family crisis in full public view. Cameras will roll in Manchester this summer. Somewhere, she has said, her mother’s whereabouts remain the question she most wants answered.