The mystery continues! American Horror Story has been picked up for seasons 8 and 9, with FX announcing the news at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in Pasadena, California, on Thursday, January 12. At the event, Ryan Murphy spoke to Us Weekly, hinting at what fans can expect from the Emmy-winning show’s upcoming batch of episodes.
Murphy, who cocreated the series with Brad Falchuk, tells Us that Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters — who have both appeared on multiple seasons of the spooky anthology series — are returning for season 7, which had been previously picked up and is set to launch later this year. The prolific TV producer claims he’s unsure as to whether the show will be as mysterious about the next season’s theme as it was for season 6’s Roanoke, which aired its finale in November.
“We haven’t decided how to do that,” Murphy says of promotion for the next run. “There’s only three people in the world who know what [the new theme] is, which is [FX president] John Landgraf, [Fox cochairman] Dana Walden and Sarah Paulson. I don’t know — I mean, last year was successful. [But] I don’t know that we’d do it again. We’ve just started writing it — we haven’t even cast it yet, except for Sarah and Evan.”
When asked for any hints on what the new season is about, the Glee cocreator demurs: “It’s a modern-day story. That’s all I’m going to say.”
In a statement, Landgraf praised the show for continuing to captivate audiences. “American Horror Story launched the modern limited series revolution and — as evidenced by the most recent installment, Roanoke — it remains as vital today as when Murder House stunned audiences six years ago,” the exec said.
Tell Us: What should the show’s team choose as the theme for the new season?
