‘Euphoria’ Season 3 is Delayed Indefinitely

A third season of Euphoria, HBO’s wildly popular and controversial teen drama, always felt like a pipe dream, even as the network stated publicly that it would be filmed and released in 2025. But new reports about Sam Levinson’s series indicate that, at the very least, Season 3 has been delayed and the involved actors have been told they can make other commitments, with some outlets going so far as to report that the season has been “totally scrapped.”

On the evening of March 24, film and TV publication World of Reel reported that the third season is “not happening,” and that actors were told “they could free up their schedules for other projects.” This morning HBO told Variety that while the network and Levinson “remain committed to making an exceptional third season,” the start of production on that season would be delayed, and added, “In the interim, we are allowing our in-demand cast to pursue other opportunities.”

The network didn’t say that the next season of the wildly popular teen drama won’t ever happen—Variety's report says the scripts are still being written. But it’s worth noting that HBO was similarly hesitant to announce the cancellation of The Idol after its poorly-received first season, even though the rumors about the fate of Levinson’s salacious music-industry drama ultimately turned out to be true.

In the two years since the second season concluded, many of Euphoria’s stars have ascended to A-list Hollywood status. Zendaya played a lead role in Dune: Part Two and has her upcoming tennis drama Challengers out in April, while Sydney Sweeney starred in three films in 2023 including the hit romcom Anyone But You and the acclaimed Reality Winner biopic. (She also played a key role in the so-bad-it’s-good Marvel Comics adaptation Madame Web and plays the lead role in religious horror flick Immaculate.)

Jacob Elordi played Elvis Presley in Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla and an important role in Emerald Fennell’s polarizing Saltburn, while Hunter Schafer appeared in the successful Hunger Games prequel and will be part of the ensemble for Yorgos Lanthimos’ next film Kinds of Kindness, which hits theaters in June. The Euphoria family has also dealt with significant tragedy in the form of the July 2023 passing of Angus Cloud, whose character Fezco had become a fan favorite.

Levinson remains a hot name in the industry, but the failure of The Idol and the widespread reports of on-set dysfunction have certainly colored his reputation. In January 2024, HBO executive Casey Bloys said that Levinson was in the midst of writing Season 3, and that the two had not discussed whether it would be the final installment. (Levinson said in August 2023, that the plan for the third season was to be a “film noir" that would have used Zendaya's character Rue to explore "what it means to be an individual with principles in a corrupt world,” which was certainly intriguing, and could still come to pass in the unlikely event the show does resume.)

The series was always going to face challenges reassembling its increasingly in-demand cast, and also grappling with the fact that these performers, now firmly in their mid-20s, were supposed to be playing high school students. Even Elordi joked about it in an interview on The Tonight Show, asking host Jimmy Fallon if he knew when the season would shoot, and saying that “they’re going to have to Benjamin Button me or something.”

If the third season is truly off, it’s unclear what Levinson’s next project will be, but the talented performers–who were always the ones that made Euphoria worth watching–have a ton of exciting films and shows on the horizon.

Originally Appeared on GQ