Euphoria Season 3 release delayed so writer Sam Levinson can make major changes in script

Actors Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer have gone on to become big stars, making it difficult to coordinate schedules

HBO has said filming of Euphoria’s third season is delayed due to creator Sam Levinson still working on scripts.

“HBO and Sam Levinson remain committed to making an exceptional third season,” an HBO spokesperson told Variety. “In the interim, we are allowing our in-demand cast to pursue other opportunities.”

The Wrap said Levinson was moving the characters and their storyline away from high school into early adulthood, and HBO agreed to more time fix the scripts to reflect the change.

Set in the fictional town of East Highland, California, Euphoria premiered in 2019 to both critical acclaim as well as criticism over its risqué themes.

The coming-of-age drama revolves around a group of teenagers trying to navigate drugs, sex, social media, broken homes, and problems and emotions associated with adolescence. The show has won nine Emmy awards for its first two seasons, including two for Zendaya, and one for Domingo.

A source close to the production said the network “wanted to give him more time to break the story, because there’s a lot more back and forth now that the show is changing in this way”.

Production on the third season has been stalled for a while, partly due to the Hollywood strikes and the death in July 2023 of actor Angus Cloud, who played local drug dealer Fez.

Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi in ‘Euphoria’ (Sky / HBO)

Actors Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer have gone on to become big stars, making it difficult to coordinate schedules. This has led to HBO’s decision to allow the actors to take other work during the delay in production.

Sources also told Deadline that there was discussion regarding doing a film in lieu of a third season, but was dropped in favour of a full season.

HBO also denied that the delay had anything to do with the cancellation of Levinson’s last show, The Idol, after accusations that it was exploitative.

“No one has lost faith in Sam as a creator,” a source told The Wrap.

“He is the driving force creatively on this show, he is still working with the same creative executives that he always has been, but since the show is changing, that process is taking longer.”

In November, Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, said that the plan was for the third season to premiere in 2025, which remains the goal.

Zendaya in ‘Euphoria' (HBO)

In an interview with Elle in August, Levinson described season three as a “film noir” and that Zendaya’s character would “explore what it means to be an individual with principles in a corrupt world.”

Speaking about the delay, Colman Domingo, who plays a recurring character on the show, said in an interview with GQ: “[Sam is] a person who writes and rewrites and writes and rewrites again, because I think he’s wrestling with what’s important…I know that the one thing I can tell you is that he’s very much interested in the existential question of who we are right now. Our souls. That’s what he wants to figure out with season three.”