After many delays, HBO has announced that “Euphoria” season 3 will start shooting in January 2025. Last I heard, the script hadn’t been finalized and was still in the writing process.
The main cast is set to return, and that includes Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, Colman Domingo, Storm Reid. The new season will not be taking place in high school. Show creator Sam Levinson had originally described his intentions for this next season as being steeped in “film noir” influence.
In early 2023, Levinson had pitched to HBO a third season that would jump ahead five years, with “very compelling” arcs for Sweeney’s Cassie and Elordi’s Nate. However, Zendaya disliked the scripts so much that Levinson had to rewrite the entire thing from scratch.
After Levinson finished rewriting the new scripts, HBO executives were still not happy with the final result. They didn’t like Rue’s new arc, which had her character sidelined as a private detective. An assortment of other storylines also didn’t make sense to them.
This sent Levinson back to the drawing board with a third revision and, according to Variety’s reporting, the updated scripts still didn’t tonally feel like “Euphoria,” which meant Levinson was going back to the drawing board, for the fourth time, with rewrites.
It came to the point where HBO reportedly explored the idea of replacing Levinson as creative head. There was also the possibility of turning season 3 into a movie. All of this doesn’t even take into account the fact that, two years since the last season, some of the main actors (Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer) are no longer doing TV and have graduated into the movie business.
HBO wants a 6-month shoot for the third season. That’s demanding, considering it entails the actors to clear up their schedules and committing half their work year for the show. It doesn’t help that, coming off “The Idol,” Levinson is on shaky ground with HBO.
Will these new plans from HBO actually materialize? A January 2025 shoot seems to be eyed, but given how all other plans to make a third season had previously failed, we should take this latest update with a major grain of salt.
Zack Snyder woke up in Toronto the morning after his premiere and did the one thing no filmmaker should ever do the morning after: he opened X.