Following the success of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story and American Crime Story dramas, FX continues to double down on their partnership with Murphy as they officially picked up two new anthology series from the award-winning series creator.
The network announced that Murphy’s American Story franchise is expanding with the upcoming addition of American Love Story and American Sports Story, which will both hail from 20th Television.
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American Love Story is a scripted anthology series of sweeping true love stories that captured the world’s attention. It will be executive produced by Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, and Alexis Martin Woodall.
“When Ryan Murphy came to us with these two spinoffs and the stories for American Sports Story and American Love Story, we immediately jumped at the opportunity,” Chairman of FX, John Landgraf, said in a statement (via Deadline). “What began with American Horror Story has spawned some of the best and most indelible programs of our generation, most notably American Crime Story which created a beautiful partnership between Ryan, Brad, Nina and Brad. Their alchemy and the way in which they construct these stories is done with such care, such clarity and such dimensionality that creates the magnificence that is The People v. O.J. Simpson, The Assassination of Gianni Versace and Impeachment. We can’t wait to see what comes next.”
The first installment will center around the love story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.
“It depicts the whirlwind courtship and marriage of Kennedy and Bessett. What started out as a beautiful union for the young couple, widely regarded as American royalty, began to fray under the stress of the relentless microscope and navel-gaze of tabloid media. The pressures of their careers and rumored family discord ended with their tragic deaths when his private plane crashed into the ocean on a hazy summer night off the coast of Massachusetts.”
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American Sports Story is being developed as a limited series that is expected to focus on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives. It will be written and executive produced by The Americans’ Stu Zicherman. Executive producers are Murphy, Jacobson, Simpson, Woodall, and Falchuk along with Hernan Lopez, Marshall Lewy, Linda Pizzuti Henry, and Ira Napoliello.
Based on the podcast by Wondery and the Boston Globe titled Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc., the first installment “charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez and explores the connections of the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide, and their legacy in sports and American culture.”
