Araki: Now Apocalypse S2 Script Mirrored Its Own Demise
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Gregg Araki told Deadline that Now Apocalypse's second season was "actually written," with the cast already paid, and that a change in Starz leadership — not creative concerns — halted production.
- The fictional Season 2 storyline featured Carly's development executive getting fired and her show put in turnaround, a plot Araki said "literally" mirrored what then happened to the real series.
- Now Apocalypse Season 1 ran for 10 episodes from March to May 2019 and was executive produced by Steven Soderbergh and Gregory Jacobs under Soderbergh's deal at Starz.
- Starz canceled the series after one season in July 2019, with then-COO Jeff Hirsch calling it "a great show" and "a great experiment for us" at the time.
- Karley Sciortino co-wrote Now Apocalypse with Araki and also co-wrote his new film I Want Your Sex, which premieres July 31 in theaters.
Why it matters: The disclosure confirms Now Apocalypse was a casualty of Starz executive turnover rather than creative failure — paid cast commitments and completed scripts existed before the network changed hands. For fans, it reframes the cancellation as a near-miss rather than a permanent end, while the metafictional plotline offers a rare case of scripted TV predicting its own real-world demise.
