Ryan Murphy Is Creating A Dramatic Sports Series
Ryan Murphy's long-awaited American Sports Story is finally heading to production.
The American Story franchise, best known for its long-lived American Horror Story TV series, will soon get a sports-themed spin-off. FX boss John Landgraf has stated that Ryan Murphy’s American Sports Story, which was announced in 2021, is finally on its way to production. American Love Story was announced at the same time, though there’s currently no word about the status of that spin-off series.
While the exact date for the release of Ryan Murphy’s sports spin-off of the popular franchise hasn’t been announced, Landgraph stated that the TV channel already has a “fairly complete set of scripts ” for the new series. The first installment of the series will be based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc, following the infamous Patriots tight end who was implicated in multiple shooting deaths. Hernandez committed suicide five days after being acquitted of a 2012 double homicide in Boston.
Ryan Murphy is currently listed as the executive producer for the upcoming American Sports Story. He has also been a producer, writer, and director for multiple episodes of American Horror Story, its direct spin-off American Horror Stories, and its true crime-based spinoff American Crime Story.
There have already been ten seasons of American Horror Story, with an eleventh on the way. Three seasons of American Crime Story have been released, along with two seasons of American Horror Stories. This means there have already been fifteen seasons of American Story content since 2011, and Ryan Murphy’s release of American Sports Story will likely make the franchise even more dominant.
While Ryan Murphy is hard at work on American Sports Story, there appears to have been a step backward on the next season of American Crime Story. While Murphy has previously said that Season 4 would be based on the infamous disco nightclub Studio 54, which closed down after the arrest of entrepreneurs Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Now, however, John Landgraf said that there are no firm plans for what the next season will be about.
Of course, Ryan Murphy has been up to a lot more than just working on the American Story franchise and its upcoming sports-themed series. He was the creator of the Netflix series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and the Fox procedural series 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star. He has also created the Netflix series The Watcher and Ratched.
Ryan Murphy has been a successful TV creator long before these more-recent series were released. He was the creator of the plastic surgery-themed drama series Nip/Tuck, which ran for 100 episodes across six seasons, along with the musical TV series Glee, which he said he wanted to contrast with darker content that had dominated entertainment. Ironically, Ryan Murphy soon returned to the darker content with the American Story series, and the sports-themed spin-off is likely to be just as dark as the rest of the franchise.
It remains to be seen when Ryan Murphy will complete work on American Sports Story, though it seems unlikely that we’ll see it any time this year.
