‘Atlanta’ Season 3 Officially Delayed to at Least 2020

Atlanta Season 3 is way behind schedule, and now it has officially been relegated to 2020 instead of later this year.

Season 3 of Atlanta has been delayed as its stars enjoy a whole lot of other huge opportunities. With the end of the spring TV season fast approaching, many fans have been wondering whether the show will even make it in time, and on Monday, FX CEO John Landgraf confirmed that the show would skip this year entirely, in a statement given to Slash Film.

“The writers are back working, thank God,” Langraf said. “Donald Glover is the king of all media, and he’s had an incredibly complicated life. He’s had personal things to deal with from injuries to other things I’d rather not say publicly that have to do with his extended family.”

Glover writes, produces and stars in the acclaimed series, which follows him as a young struggling Georgian working as his cousin’s manager and trying to help him find success in the rap scene. Of course, Glover is notorious for creative multi-tasking and spreading himself thin over multiple projects. Landgraf has kept Atlanta flexible for that exact reason, encouraging Glover to stay busy, as his other pursuits are likely to draw more viewers to the show.

“One thing that’s just a reality of television today is you just have to wait,” Landgraf said. “We didn’t get back on an annual cycle on Atlanta. I wish for the fans as well as for us that we could get everything back on an annual basis. You just have to make a decision about quality over quantity.”

It is a pretty safe bet that that choice will pay off, especially when it comes to Glover. Atlanta is a critical and commercial success, scoring ten Emmy nominations and four wins last year for Season 2. Many fans figured that, at the very least, Landgraf and FX would want to get another season done in time for the 2019 Emmy cutoff, which is in May, but FX publicist John Solberg confirmed that that will not be the case.

“It won’t be for this Emmy cycle,” he said.

Among the many other projects Glover has juggled recently was a Deadpool animated series, planned for FX to present a more all-ages friendly version of the character. Landgraf addressed that as well, explaining that it was Marvel Studios that actually pulled the plug on that project.

“His Deadpool animated series didn’t work out because Marvel didn’t want to make it,” the CEO said. “That’s really is what it comes down to. It didn’t fit what they wanted to do with Deadpool. It’s their brand. It’s their decision about that.”

If it’s any consolation, Glover’s Atlanta co-star Zazzie Beetz had a starring role in Deadpool 2 last year, and she is slated to appear in an upcoming X-Force movie as well. His other co-stars, Bryan Tyree Henry and Lakeith Stanfield, have had massive break-out roles outside of the show as well.

Meanwhile, Glover plays Simba in the upcoming Lion King reboot. He continues to find success in music as Childish Gambino, even as he eschews the boundaries between genres, and last year he stood out as Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story, for which Landgraf vocally allowed him to delay Atlanta Season 2.