FX's 'The Beauty' On Pause As Cast Options Lapse
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- "The Beauty" is on pause at FX, with options on the cast having lapsed and actors moving on to other projects, per a Deadline exclusive
- Evan Peters, who played FBI Agent Cooper Madsen, is now filming Season 13 of American Horror Story for FX and Murphy
- Rebecca Hall is in talks for the female lead opposite Morgan Spector in Netflix's Dan Brown adaptation "The Secret Of Secrets"
- The first season ended on a major cliffhanger, with Cooper emerging from a cocoon post-transformation — though his new appearance was never revealed
- The Beauty got a solid launch in January, especially overseas, but failed to sustain momentum and was soon overshadowed by the launch of Murphy's other FX series "Love Story"
- The series, created by Ryan Murphy and Hodgson, also stars Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos, and Jeremy Pope, and is produced by 20th Television
Why it matters: The lapse of cast options on a big-budget FX series with extensive VFX and European shoots — not a cheap property to mothball — signals the network is unwilling to lock in its leads without a green light for Season 2. With both Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall committed to other Murphy and Netflix projects and no current renewal plans, resuming the body-horror mystery would require recasting or waiting out their schedules, leaving Cooper's post-cocoon transformation unresolved indefinitely.
