Fox’s low-rated Scream Queens might be fearing the ‘horror story’ scenario of a one-and-done cancellation, but creator Ryan Murphy is planning a ‘broader’ second season nonetheless, as reported by THR:
But when Murphy woke up the following morning, the narrative had changed. The series had lured only 4 million viewers, and his feed was full of tweets about the show’s “lackluster” performance. “I thought, ‘OK, well, that’s it,’ ” he says. “That and my career is over in some weird way.” Fox TV COO Joe Earley gave him his first of several pep talks. “I think we got caught up in a part of our business that has changed,” he told Murphy, a point Walden would reiterate when the series saw a dramatic lift online and on-demand. (One week in, that audience had more than doubled.) Soon, she and Newman, who were as eager to protect the ego of their prized showrunner as they were to preserve the reputation of their network, would put out a press release: “Scream Queens is a model for contemporary viewership.”
Whether there’s sufficient money in that model remains to be seen, but Murphy’s spirits have lifted when I see him a few days later. He’s already pitched Walden on a broader second season, which would feature a cast of all different age groups. (The current one will likely have four survivors, whom he says will play the same characters in a new venue.) “With all of my work, it always takes a while for people to get it,” he says, reminding me — and perhaps himself — that neither Horror Story nor Glee was a hit right out of the gate. “It goes from, ‘What the hell is that?’ to ‘Oh, I like that.’ So hopefully, given the opportunity, the same thing will happen with Scream Queens.”
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