'Atlanta' Seasons 3 And 4 To Begin Filming Early Next Year

Donald Glover's Emmy-winning FX series Atlanta is finally ramping back up next year.

The critically acclaimed show was supposed to air its third season last year, but scheduling conflicts caused it to be pushed back. Since its stars, including Glover, Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, and Lakeith Stanfield, have become some of the most in-demand actors working in Hollywood these days, it makes sense it'd be a bit tougher than usual to get all of their schedules to line up. Eventually plans changed, and word came out that the third and fourth seasons would shoot back to back and have shorter episode counts.

Now John Landgraf, the head of FX Networks, says the show will get back in front of cameras again in 2021 to shoot both of the new seasons.

Landgraf participated in a press conference today, where he laid out some of the ways the company is adopting safety protocols to combat the spread of COVID-19 and dropped some new info about the production of Atlanta season 3 and 4. The delay is a bummer for those who have been hoping to see more of the show since Robbin' Season (the subtitle for the second season) came out in 2018, but Landgraf had some good news:

"One of the things that's been kind of an unexpected boon from COVID-19 is that writers have had a lot of time to write. Donald Glover and his intrepid team of partners have written everything for seasons three and four. One [season] shoots primarily in Europe, one primarily in Atlanta. The intent is to shoot them all at one time, essentially back to back. However, the availability has been pushed back because of COVID. That had to do with our sense of when we could return to work safely and then we had to coordinate all of the cast for what is shooting two seasons at once. Heartbreakingly for me, it has been pushed back a little bit."

Atlanta season 2 ended with Earn doing some shady shit with a gun which allowed him to keep his job as Paper Boi's manager, and he, Paper Boi, and their pal Darius got on a plane so Paper Boi could participate in a European tour with a fellow rapper named Clark County. Presumably, the third season will follow their European tour. Meanwhile, Earn and Van's relationship has hit the skids, with Van thinking about taking their daughter and moving in with her mom.

There's no tentative release date slated for Atlanta's return just yet, but I can't wait to see how this weird, funny, distressing, and profound series continues to evolve.