Now that the filmmakers behind “The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” have declared case closed on one of the most famous trials in U.S. history, they’re turning their attention to the next crime.
The target for Season 2: Hurricane Katrina.
“The writers’ room is right now working on Katrina,” executive producer Brad Simpson teased during “American Crime Story’s” panel at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour Tuesday. “DV [Devincentis] returning to work with Ryan [Murphy].”
One of the biggest questions surrounding such a famous disaster has been which major political players will be portrayed in the fictionalized, scripted series.
“Yes, you’ll have the famous people, and also people who weren’t famous during Katrina,” Simpson said, declining to confirm whether people like George W. Bush, president at the time in 2004, would be included.
“We’re looking at it to be tonally and thematically incredibly different [from Season 1],” Simpson continued. “Really it’s going to be about two things, one is just the intensity of what it’s like to be there on the ground, to be in the pressure cooker, but also thematically, the bigger crime — that Katrina was something that was predictable, that we weren’t prepared for, but we knew was going to happen. It turns a lens back on America, and shows some uncomfortable truths about it. We’re about to get scripts in, so we’ll know who the main characters will be.”
The producer also declined to confirm whether any of the cast of Season 1 — including Sarah Paulson, John Travolta, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and David Schwimmer — will return to take on new roles, in the grand tradition of Ryan Murphy anthology series.