Although they’ve stockpiled behind-the-scenes staff and a number of big-name performers—including Dennis Quaid, Annette Benning, and Matthew Broderick—the team behind American Crime Story: Katrina now find themselves helpless in the face of an all-powerful, merciless natural force: Ryan Murphy.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the project (originally touted as the direct follow-up to the critically celebrated The People Vs. O.J. Simpson) is currently in limbo, as everyone involved waits for Murphy to tell them when to start production and what to do. Last month, FX announced that Versace—based on the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace—would now be ACS’s second season, although the network assured fans that Katrina would still air in 2018.
That seems suddenly less certain, though. “Nothing has really been done. We haven’t started prep on it at all,” said director Anthony Hemingway, a vet of the show’s first season, talking about Katrina’s fate. “Who knows. It’s all up to Ryan Murphy.” Hemingway also suggested that part of the switch-up and the delay is that Murphy might have underestimated the complexity both projects required. “[Versace] needed a lot of attention, so I think he just made the decision to do that. Instead of do what was intended, which was doing them parallel at the same time, he chose to do them one at a time.”