FX
FX announced Thursday, January 9, that it has ordered three additional seasons of American Horror Story on top of the 10th season that is already scheduled to premiere in 2020, bringing the total seasons up to 13 (and counting).
Here’s what you need to know about the series and its upcoming seasons.
It Is FX’s Highest-Rated Series
This Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning anthology series comes from the minds of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. It is FX’s highest-rated series, averaging nearly 10 million viewers across all linear and non-linear platforms, so it’s no wonder the FX executives want to keep the AHS train rolling.
“Ryan and Brad are the undisputed masters of horror TV, having created the anthological limited series with American Horror Story and sustaining its success for nearly a decade as FXs’ highest-rated series,” said the chairman of FX Networks John Landgraf in a statement. “We are grateful to them and [Fox TV Group chairman and CEO] Dana Walden and our studio partners for committing to another three years. AHS has showcased a wealth of award-winning actors since day one and we appreciate the contributions of everyone, including Ryan, Brad and fellow executive producers Tim Minear, James Wong, Alexis Martin Woodall, and Bradley Buecker, the writers, directors, cast, and crew for each new, unforgettable installment of American Horror Story.”
In addition to its solid ratings, American Horror Story has been nominated for nearly 100 Emmys, winning 16 of them; it has also been nominated for nine Golden Globes (winning two), and 17 Critics’ Choice Awards (winning four).
The Critics Like It Too
For its first nine seasons, American Horror Story has never dropped below a 63 percent critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And that 63 is a bit of an outlier. It is for the fifth season, subtitled “Hotel,” which is generally regarded as the show’s weakest season. If you take that number out of the mix, the show has never dropped below 73 percent, with three seasons ranking in the 80s — “Asylum,” “Coven,” and “1984.”
The most recent season even managed to pull off a surprisingly upbeat ending, which is not something the show is known for and was kind of a breath of fresh air.
“American Horror Story: 1984 wrapped up its nine-episode season last night with ‘Final Girl,’ which — despite some spectacular moments of bloodshed — pulled the ultimate AHS bait-and-switch and gave its delightfully entertaining slasher story a most unexpected ending,” wrote io9’s Cheryl Eddy of the “1984” finale.
What We Know About Future Seasons
Telling our kids this was Fyre Festival.
There aren’t too many details on the upcoming 10th season, which should premiere in September 2020 if the pattern holds. But Ryan Murphy did tell Deadline in an interview back in November that he already came up with the idea for season 10.
“We’re working on an idea for season 10 that I think people will love because it’s about reuniting fan-favorite actors to come back … So, I’ve been quietly reaching out to various people. Some people I haven’t reached out to yet because I was like ‘Do I have a role for them?’ So far, everybody I reached out to said ‘Yes’, so that’s been great,” said Murphy.
Edited to add: FX chairman Landgraf tells the 2020 Television Critics Association winter press tour audience that Murphy did not come to them with ideas for seasons 11, 12, and 13. They trust Murphy to choose interesting and provocative subject matter.
“I think one of the things [Murphy] loves and I think we’re really fortunate that he still loves it, but he loves the act of imagination and creating something new and really starting from the ground up … he sort of just, every year, I think he probably has a bucket of possibilities, but every year he kind of figures out what he’s obsessed with this year or what he thinks is relevant,” says Landgraf. “Sometimes it’s classic, sometimes it’s more responding to the moment and then he surprises me by telling me what it’s going to be. But I’m really excited we are going to continue to work with him and it feels really poetic to me that American Horror Story is going to have 13 seasons. That just felt right.”
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