Ryan Murphy on Finding a Focal Point in a Hurricane for ‘American Crime Story’ Season 2
When SuperFan Los Angeles caught up with producer Ryan Murphy at the Television Critics Association Winter 2017 press tour, we had to discuss the status of the second season of American Crime Story. “I think the interesting thing about the Katrina project is our main script starts off as an overture where we look at everything that’s happening in the city and has gone on right before the hurricane hits,” Murphy explained. The first season, The People v. O.J. Simpson, was an awards show powerhouse at the Golden Globes and Emmys, so FX and the producers have been careful not to hit a sophomore slump with a followup season that focuses on Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans.
“We take individual characters that we establish and go very intimately through their eyes through that really bad situation,” Murphy continued. “And I think we sort of highlight and declare that what happened here was a crime, it was a crime against a very specific segment of the population that was not treated well by our government, that was sort of thrown away and not cared about.”
The yet-to-be-titled season was recently pushed back to a 2018 release, because, as FX president John Landgraf explained, “It’s just taking time, frankly, to get material we’re happy with. Also, when you’re shooting in New Orleans, you have to worry about hurricanes. You can only shoot there during certain times of the year.”
Despite the delays, Murphy is still quite passionate about the story and what it means to the future of our environment, “I think there’s a very large global warming contingency to that story, because what happened in New Orleans with Katrina is going to happen again and again with even much more frequency in this country and around the world. So it’s a kind of hopeful, Cassandra Cry warning about, We better watch it because it’s going to happen again.”
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Tell us what you think! Will Season Two of American Crime Story be worth the wait? And are you looking forward to Season Three’s coverage of Gianni Versace’s murder? Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Khail Anonymous, on Twitter.