Ryan Murphy has released a new sneak peek at ‘American Horror Story: 1984’, which is set at a summer camp and captures the spirit of slasher flicks of the ’80s like ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘Sleepaway Camp’. This clip looks like it is set early in the first episode, as the knife-wielding terror has not claimed his first victim… yet.
The cast of ‘1984’ is a mix of returning ‘AHS’ vets– Cody Fern, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, John Carroll Lynch, and Emma Roberts– and newcomers– DeRon Horton, Gus Kenworthy, Matthew Morrison, Angelica Ross, and Zach Villa. This will be the first season that will not star Evan Peters, who has had a large role (sometimes more than one) in every season until now. Also absent is Sarah Paulson who has appeared in every installment (once again, sometimes in more than one role) since the beginning, although she only had a small role in the first season, ‘Murder House’. It is possible that Paulson will have a similarly small role in ‘1984’, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.
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But it turns out that after the sprawling last season, ‘Apocalypse’, which crossed over characters from multiple seasons, including ‘Murder House’ and ‘Coven’, Murphy needed to scale back the cast in a major way for his next installment.
At the TCA press tour, FX Networks and FX Productions CEO John Landgraf revealed to The Wrap:
“Remember, he did something really interesting, which is he decided to weave multiple different cycles through the eighth season, and so it was the biggest cast ever. You had actors that were playing 2-3 different characters. You had to bring back all the cast from prior seasons. It was a monster in terms of the size of the cast, cost of that cast. You can’t do that all the time… Part of what he needed to do, which is what he did, was clean the slate, start over.”
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Landgraf also disclosed that whether or not there is a tenth installment of ‘AHS’ isn’t up to him or FX, but rather Murphy. “It really is up to Ryan,” he said. It seems if he wants to do it, they’re happy to have it. But Murphy has parted ways with 20th Century Fox in favor of a development deal with Netflix and is busy with that. (Part of why Paulson isn’t in ‘1984’ may be the fact that she is starring in ‘Ratchet’, one of Murphy’s first programs for the streaming service.)
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“The thing about Ryan that is so interesting to me… I’m a planner and he is a man of emotion and spontaneity. He gets these inspirations, and when he gets them he goes. The truth is, I would be really surprised if Ryan had an idea at the moment for the 10th episode [of Season 9]… If he has it, he hasn’t shared it with me,” Landgraf said. “I’m methodical and he’s unbelievably rigorous in what he does. He’s a person of impulse.”
‘American Horror Story: 1984’ will slash its way back onto FX on Wednesday, September 18 at 10 pm EST.
Jax's earliest memory is of watching 'Batman,' followed shortly by a memory of playing Batman & Robin with a friend, which entailed running outside in just their underwear and towels as capes. When adults told them they couldn't run around outside in their underwear, both boys promptly whipped theirs off and ran around in just capes.
