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TV: Casting Underway on “American Horror Story” S2, Some S1 Actors Returning
FX president and general manager John Landgraf met the Television Critics Association to present the cable network’s spring season. Taking questions, he addressed the status of “American Horror Story”‘s second season and new cast.
“Ryan Murphy’s already looking for that cast,” Landgraf said. “He’s already in active conversations with new people and also two or possibly three of the existing cast members, some series regulars or guest cast may be continuing next year although they would be playing entirely new roles.”
Landgraf reiterated that he greenlit the plan to kill off the season one cast. They just didn’t want the audience to know that was going to happen. “We just didn’t want to tell the audience that because the experience of not knowing where it would end would be diminished, if they knew we were going to burn this cast and location to the ground.”
This is something Ryan Murphy does. Maybe not on “Glee,” but his previous FX show was reinvented a few times too. If you liked “nip/tuck” in L.A. (and I did. It really saved the series from the Carver and organ thieves) then “American Horror Story” is following a similar artistic path. (continued inside)“This was something I was really excited about this idea from the get go,” Landgraf said. “One of the things I think Ryan’s particularly strong at is creating a really distinctive world in all its aspects. That includes the tone and mood of the place, the costume design and music, cinematography. If you looked at the way those characters were dressed, right down to Jessica Lange’s wardrobe and the way her hair was style, Ryan Murphy was involved in every aspect of that. Even with nip/tuck he wanted to recreate it at a certain point so he moved it from Miami to LA. This gives him the opportunity to do that every year.”
To some extent Landgraf lets Murphy do what he wants. If audiences have a hard time with the show, they’re just not going to get Murphy. But there’s no reigning him in.
“They have more leeway and creative freedom than most so I don’t know every detail of everything they’re up to, I certainly knew a lot,” Landgraf said. “I knew the entire family was going to die by the end of the season. One of my biggest concerns about the piece is that the nature of the genre is that you’re always ahead of the protagonist. You know things the protagonist doesn’t know so we knew that certain critics and audiences would get frustrated with the leads. It’s just a classic rule of storytelling the leads should know more than the audience, or at least not less. After the lead characters were dead and knew everything, they were at least by the end of the piece able to recapture their status as leads. The final episode where Vivien and Ben Harmon spook the new couple out of the house was the first time in 7 or 8 episodes where they were ahead of the audience. It was an experiment. I didn’t know if that would alienate the audience. It didn’t in terms of viewership. That’s Ryan. He’s going to push the form and go to places you wouldn’t expect.”
The FX thriller from “Glee” co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk capped off its first season run with a record 3.22 million viewers — a strong finish for the top-rated first season series in the network’s history, said THR back in December.
The finale, which drew mixed reviews from critics, delivered 2.2 million viewers in the coveted 18 to 49 demographic, and ranked as cable’s No. 1 program in all of key demos Wednesday. Once DVR viewership is factored in for what Nielsen named the year’s most time-shifted program, the final tally will likely exceed 5 million total viewers.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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