Don’t expect to see new episodes of Atlanta in 2019. The Donald-Glover-led hit series was renewed for a third season shortly after the second season ended last spring. At the time, it was expected at the time the series would return by the end of 2019. However, according to the Hollywood Reporter, that is no longer the case.
Monday morning, FX chief John Landgraf revealed the news at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Speaking about FX’s 2019 TV schedule, “I don’t know whether we’ll have Atlanta or not. The writers are back working right now, thank God,” said Landgraf. John Solberg, head of PR, quickly doubled down on those comments: “It won’t be for this Emmy cycle.” Landgraf lamented the news jokingly though, “If you wanna see me cry, you can just come backstage.”
Landgraf did continue and offer some explanation for the delay: “As you might imagine, Donald Glover is sort of the king of all media, and he just has had an incredibly complicated life. He’s had personal things he’s had to deal with, from injuries to other things I’d rather not say publicly that just have to do not with his personal life but his extended family. So I think one of the things that is just a reality of television today is you have to wait. We have so many things now that don’t cycle back on a regular basis. … From my standpoint, I wish for the fans as well as for us that we could get everything back on an annual basis but, again, you just have to make a decision about quantity over quality at a certain point — and we’re just erring on the side of quality”
Cast member Zasie Beetz recently made her own comments on the third season of the critically acclaimed series. While speaking with IndieWire about her upcoming film Wounds, she offered an update on the season’s production. “Ideally we would be shooting now; that’s not happening,” she said. “Everybody’s schedules are sort of all over the place — they’re hoping for spring sometime, but no dates. Everybody’s busy, and Donald [Glover] had his tour in the fall, and that doesn’t lend itself to time for scriptwriting. I know that they have a couple of episodes together, but I don’t have any real information.”
With Atlanta definitely out of the picture for the Emmys, it opens up the field. Shows such as Barry and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will now have the opportunity to walk away with more awards. However, the final season of Veep is set to air this spring and expected to clean up at the Emmys this year.
