Atlanta Season 3 has been delayed.
FX chief John Landgraf shared the news at the Television Critics Association critics tour on Monday morning, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The network renewed the series for a third season in June 2018, anticipating its return in 2019. However, it looks like that won’t be a possibility.
Langraf said, “I don't know whether we'll have Atlanta or not. The writers are back working right now, thank god.”
He continued, “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 with not with his personal life but his extended family.”
One of the personal situations Langraf could be referencing is the death of Glover’s father, whom the artist paid tribute to during the last show of his This Is America Tour in Los Angeles in December. “I lost my father a couple weeks ago,” Glover told fans. “I wanted to play him some of the new songs, but he didn’t want to hear them because he was like, ‘I know they’ll be great.’ I’m not saying that to talk about music, I say that to talk about trust.”
One fan posted footage of Glover honoring his father before playing the song “Riot”; near the end it sounds as if he's fighting back tears. The show saw him admit that 2018 was a tough year in general for everyone, explaining, “I lost a lot of good people. I know it’s been a tough year for everybody, that’s what’s crazy. I wish I could change everything for everybody.”
Prior to FX’s announcement, Zazie Beetz shared similar Atlanta information with IndieWire in January, mentioning that filming for Season 3 hadn't even started yet. “Everybody's schedules are sort of all over the place,” she said. “They're hoping for spring sometime, but no dates. ... Everybody's busy and Donald had his tour in the fall, and that doesn't lend itself to time for script writing. I know that they have a couple of episodes together, but I don't have any real information.”
In June, Glover shed some light on the expectations for the Robbin' Season follow-up. “I align the seasons I think, to me, like Kanye records,” Glover said, per IndieWire. “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.”
That same month, Lil Yachty also shared his interest in appearing in the series, and Stephen Glover revealed the next arc will focus on more women-centric stories.
