Yet another Ryan Murphy-tagged show is one step closer to heading to TV screens. American Sports Story, an upcoming scripted anthological limited series that marks that latest addition to the American Horror Story creator’s American series lineup, is “heading toward production,” FX president John Landgraf confirmed during the network’s Television Critics’ Association panel on Jan. 12. According to Landgraf, per Deadline, FX has “a fairly complete set of scripts for American Sports Story by Stu Zicherman.” However, the FX boss noted, “we haven’t dated that.”
The upcoming series is described by the network as “a scripted anthological limited series focusing on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives.” The first installment is based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc from the Boston Globe and Wondery. It will chronicle the “rise and fall” of Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end convicted for murder, and explore the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and their legacy in sports and American culture.”
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American Sports Story was one of two new shows from Murphy confirmed to be in the works back in August 2021. The title American Love Story is also in the works. The scripted anthology series will focus on high-profile love stories, with the untitled first installment set to center on the whirlwind courtship and marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. It will delve into the stress of their positions and the worldwide media lens, as well as the pressures of their individual careers and rumored family discord that “ended with their tragic deaths when his private plane crashed into the ocean on a hazy summer night off the coast of Massachusetts.”
Along with American Sports Story and American Love Story, Murphy, who was honored with the Carol Burnett Award at the 2023 Golden Globes on Jan. 10, has several other projects keeping him busy. American Horror Story and its FX on Hulu spinoff, American Horror Stories, are still thriving. Meanwhile, Landgraf revealed Thursday that the fourth installment of American Crime Story is coming, but “we haven’t designated a subsequent successor. We have other things in development but we haven’t planned and said ‘Yes, this is the fourth season of American Crime Story.” Murphy will also be keeping busy with Monster. Following the release and success of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Netflix in November renewed the Monster anthology show for two additional seasons, which will tell “stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society.”
American Sports Story is executive produced by Zicherman, who is best known for his work on The Americans and recently wrote episodes of Alaska Daily and The Shrink Next Door. Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Nina Jacobson, and Brad Simpson, as well as Wondery’s Hernan Lopez and Marshall Lewy and The Boston Globe’s Linda Pizutti Henry and Ira Napoliello also executive produce. A tentative premiere window for the series has not been released.
