Last August, Ryan Murphy announced that American Crime Story’s interrogation of race and politics in America would expand to take on the weather itself, with a second-season examination of the impact and lingering effects of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina crisis. Now, though, Entertainment Weekly reports that American Crime Story: Katrina is getting set aside for a year, and that the show’s second season will instead focus on the tale of murdered fashion legend Gianni Versace.
The Assassination Of Gianni Versace was originally slated to be the show’s third season, a return to the series’ true-crime roots after a second season tackling a story of massive, city-destroying scale. Still, the change isn’t entirely surprising: FX has been much more forthcoming in recent months with casting news for Versace than it has been for Katrina, with Penelope Cruz, Ricky Martin, Max Greenfield, and Édgar Ramírez all signing on for its blend of fashion and murder mystery.
Meanwhile, Matthew Broderick, Dennis Quaid, and Annette Bening—who’ve been cast as Michael Brown, George W. Bush, and former Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco in Katrina—will presumably have to sit tight and wait for the big storm to have its turn. Katrina is now expected to start shooting some time in 2018.