FX

For fans of Ryan Murphy’s ‘American Horror Story’, there is good news and bad news.  The good news is that FX has ordered the spin-off series ‘American Horror Stories’, which Murphy just revealed was in the works two weeks ago.  ‘American Horror Stories’ will take the anthology format even further, with each episode being a stand-alone story, along the lines of ‘Black Mirror’.

This series order should come as no surprise, as FX has remained deeply committed to ‘AHS’, which remains its highest-rated show, even going into its 10th season.  But speaking of that…

The bad news is that there won’t be an ‘AHS’ installment this year.  Around the same time that he teased the development of ‘American Horror Stories’, Murphy disclosed that he might not be able to get the tenth season of the parent series on the air this year due to shut-downs caused by the coronavirus.  For the last couple of years, Murphy has released new seasons early in the fall season so that they would be wrapped up before Thanksgiving.  His reasoning is that people aren’t really in the mood for blood and gore during the holidays, and in the past, ‘AHS’ has suffered from a massive drop in viewers when it went on hiatus in the winter and returned the following year.

It appears that the upcoming 10th season was very dependent on the weather, and because production hasn’t been able to start, the window was closing.  As Murphy stated two weeks ago:

“Well, I don’t know, because a lot of what I was going to shoot was dependent on a very specific moment, it was a weather-dependent show.  So now I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I don’t know what I’m gonna do next with that show. I don’t know if I’ll accelerate another season or wait till next year to shoot this one.”

But Murphy has thrown fans a bone with a photo on Instagram:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

American Horror Story. Clue.

A post shared by Ryan Murphy (@mrrpmurphy) on

He has already teased a beach theme, so this isn’t a HUGE reveal, but it pretty much guarantees that Season 10 will be set at the shore.

Fans should be thrilled that this season will welcome back stalwarts Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters, who were both missing from Season 9 (‘1984’).  Other returning regulars include Kathy Bates, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, Adina Porter, Lily Rabe, Angelica Ross, and Finn Wittrock.  It’s unknown if the delay in production will cause any issues with their participation.

The only new cast member announced is Macaulay Culkin.  While very little is known about the new season, it is known that Culkin and Bates will share a sex scene, which is what Murphy used to secure the ‘Home Alone’ star.

Are you intrigued at the idea of self-contained tales in ‘American Horror Stories’?  Are you disappointed that there won’t be an installment of ‘American Horror Story’ in 2020?

 

Source: Variety