Is Yellowjackets Based on a True Story? Real-Life Influences Explained

Yellowjackets may be set in a real-looking world, but did it actually happen?

Yellowjackets‘s unique story of survival has some wondering if the series is based on a true story.

Showtime’s hit thriller follows the teenage survivors of a plane crash in the 1990s that left a girls’ soccer team stranded in the Canadian wilderness.

In parallel to this Lord of the Flies-esque story, the series also documents the adult lives of those who lived through the show’s horrific events while stuck and forced to do what it takes to survive.

Did Yellowjackets Actually Happen?

While Yellowjackets may seem like it could have happened in real life, the critically acclaimed TV drama is not based on a true story.

However, just because the series does not recount the actual events of a thrilling survival story does not mean outside sources have not influenced it.

The real-life events of The Donner Party and The Andes Flight Disaster initially inspired the series.

The Donner Party famously saw a group of American pioneers forced to grapple with the realities of survival as they traveled from the Midwest to California.

The Andes Flight Disaster similarly was an instance of miraculous human survival, as a youth team of Rugby players had their flight over Chile crash land in the brutal terrain of the Andes Mountains.

Both historical tragedies saw groups of people stranded in the wilderness, grappling with the tough choices that come with doing anything to make it out alive. They also infamously featured instances of cannibalism, in which surviving members of each party ate the corpses of their deceased cohorts for sustenance.

According to a 2021 conversation between showrunner Ashley Lyle and Forbes, these two events served as the “jumping-off point” for the Showtime drama before it took on a life of its own.

Lyle was also inspired by news a gender-swapped remake of the classic 1954 novel Lord of the Flies was in the works.

Lord of the Flies is one of the most direct comparisons Yellowjackets receives, as both center on a young cast having to essentially form their own society after being stranded in the wilderness.

Lyle told The New York Times that reading coverage surrounding this all-female Lord of the Flies made her want to pursue a story like this. She said that many were skeptical the reimagined story could work, as some believed a cast of all girls would never descend to the same kind of barbarianism seen in the all-boys original.

Lyle remembered one comment asking, “What are they going to do? Collaborate to death?” to which she venomously retorted, “You were never a teenage girl, sir.” She called the dynamics between teenage girls just as ferocious, if not more:

“There was a girl in my high school who poisoned another girl’s food for fun. Only showing girls getting along is not painting a full picture.”

Using Lord of the Flies as the foundation, Lyle found what she wanted to say with a series like Yellowjackets. She has called the show a “counterpoint” to the classic novel, using its narrative basis of kids stranded to fend for themselves and not much more (via Creative Screenwriting):

“It was not an adaptation in any form. The thematics of the novel in terms of belief, superstition, and the primal desire to make sense of the world also made its way into our narrative. Our approach to ‘Yellowjackets’ made it a counterpoint to ‘Lord Of The Flies’ which is more focused on a governing hierarchy imposed on individuals. We had an inside out approach to governance where the hierarchy grew out of the characters rather than the other way around.”

According to Lyle, other influences on the series include The Sopranos, Welcome to the Dollhouse, and Fargo, which all “[deal] with dark matter in a humorous way.”

Yellowjackets Season 3 is set to finish filming in October 2024, and the first season recently debuted on Netflix in the U.S.