Does anybody really believe that Euphoria is ever coming back? Well, besides HBO, which has kept up the illusion that its popular, edgy high school show is going to return, through multiple strikes, reported script disputes with creator Sam Levinson, and the general slow pace with which prestige shows seem to move these days. (Didn’t we just have this conversation about Severance?) Now, though, HBO really, really means it: Euphoria will finally begin filming its third season, with all its biggest stars (Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer, Alexa Demie, Maude Apatow, etc.), at the beginning of 2025, per Variety.
“I am thrilled that we are ready to begin production on Euphoria in January,” Francesca Orsi, executive vice president of HBO programming and head of HBO drama series and films, said in a statement. “We could not be happier with our creative partnership with Sam and this incredible cast. We look forward to bringing this new season of Euphoria to life for the fans.”
Presumably, this means that Levinson, Zendaya, and HBO have all finally agreed on a direction for the third season, which wasn’t the case earlier this year. HBO and Max boss Casey Bloys said last month that there had been “a lot of back and forth” with Levinson “about where to set [the season] and how far in the future to set it and all that stuff.” However, he also said that Levinson had settled on “a take that he’s excited about, and he’s busy writing.”
So now, we’re supposed to believe that the cast is setting aside time in their incredibly busy schedules for Euphoria. To recap, that’s Elordi, who’s starring in Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada; Schafer, who was just in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness and was recently cast in the upcoming Blade Runner series; Sydney Sweeney, who has about a dozen projects in the works at all time; and Zendaya, who is now one of the biggest stars in the world. If their schedules do align to all be on set together in January 2025, the show likely won’t be ready to air until the end of that year at the earliest. That would be a gap of nearly four years between the second and third seasons.
At that point, the question wouldn’t be “Will Euphoria come back?” but “Does anyone still care that Euphoria is coming back?” The cast becoming major movie stars is a boost to the show’s reputation, but it’s an incredible loss of momentum for a show that always had mixed reviews to begin with. But first thing’s first, Euphoria actually has to film a third season... we’ll see, in January, if that actually comes to pass.