FX officially confirmed we’ll be getting an Atlanta Season 3. It’s just going to take awhile.
Donald and Stephen Glover’s brilliant, Faulkner-esque series Atlanta has been a big hit for FX in some untraditional ways. Anecdotally speaking, it feels like few shows on television drive online conversation or rile up the blogosphere like Atlanta.
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FX, as run by CEO John Landgraf, is a network that thrives on non-traditional attention. It likes its shows to drive conversation, generate thinkpieces, and win awards. Atlanta has proven adept at all three of those things. So Atlanta only drew less than a million viewers on the night it airs, but FX is confident in its product. It likely helped that FX just inked Atlanta director and long-time Glover collaborator Hiro Murai to a big overall deal.
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“Atlanta is phenomenal, achieving and exceeding what few television series have done,” said president of original programming for FX Nick Grad in a statement. “With Atlanta Robbin’ Season, Donald and his collaborators elevated the series to even greater heights, building on the enormous success of their award-winning first season. We’re grateful to the producers and our extraordinary cast and crew for achieving this level of excellence, and we share the excitement with our audience about the third season knowing they will continue to take us to unexpected and thrilling places.”
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At an FYC Emmy screening this summer, Glover said that Atlanta Season 3 will be the most “accessible” season yet.
“I align the seasons I think, to me, like Kanye records,” Glover said. “I feel like this is our ‘Graduation.’ This is probably our most accessible but also the realest — an honest version of it — and I feel like the most enjoyable, like the third album.
Atlanta Season 3 Cast
The main players are all sure to be back: Donald Glover, Zazie Beets, Brian Tyree Henry, and Lakeith Stanfield. Beetz confirmed as much to Digital Spy. There may, however, come a day when this cast is simply too famous and has too many other opportunities to stay locked down. Beetz and Stanfield had a busy schedule of late with the likes of Deadpool 2 and Sorry to Bother You. That day is not here yet though.
Atlanta Season 3 Release Date
FX announced that Atlanta season 3 will air in 2019 but that might be an optimistic estimate.
Glover has the following in the works, in some order: a new Childish Gambino album, and The Lion King remake.
Glover also likes to work at his own pace, telling Entertainment Tonight before the debut of Atlanta Season 2: “I don’t rush my work. I’d hate to be like, ‘It was worth the wait.’ You’ll decide that.” Whenever Atlanta Season 3 arrives, it will likely be worth the wait. We can’t wait to see where Paper Boi’s career goes next or at least what haunted woods he gets lost in.
And now it gets worse. Atlanta star Zazie Beetz told IndieWire that due to some delays, Atlanta won’t begin production until the spring. Clear some space in your 2020 schedule. FX CEO John Landgraf confirmed as much during his appearance at the 2019 TCA winter press tour. Atlanta Season 3 likely won’t arrive until late 2019 at the earliest.
Alec Bojalad is TV Editor at Den of Geek and TCA member. Read more of his stuff here. Follow him at his creatively-named Twitter handle @alecbojalad