FX's CEO on fate of 'Louie': 'We still talk about making more seasons with some regularity'

FX’s CEO on fate of ‘Louie’: ‘We still talk about making more seasons with some regularity’

Jan. 16, 2016 3:34 PM PT

This might be worse than showing up to the wrong potluck: There are still no signs of a new season of “Louie” in the near future.

As we told you last summer, the FX comedy is taking an indefinite hiatus as its maker, Louis C.K., takes a breather. Viewers, of course, are wondering if he’s caught that breath yet.

When FX Networks Chief Executive John Landgraf took the stage Saturday morning at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena, he offered no real update on when viewers might see another season of the dark comedy.

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“I really don’t know,” Landgraf said of when C.K. would revisit the series. “He told me recently that he pulled out all of his unexecuted notes on ‘Louie’ from previous seasons — the things he partially wrote or thought about writing but didn’t write. And he spent some time sitting there thinking about it in the context of his current life and what’s happening.”

The comedian, of course, isn’t at home twiddling his thumbs. He is an executive producer on other projects for FX, including the Zach Galifianakis-led clown comedy “Baskets” and “Better Things,” a show starring longtime collaborator Pamela Adlon as a single mother trying to raise three daughters while also attempting to make it as an actress. That’s in addition to C.K. serving as executive producer on the Tig Notaro series for Amazon, “One Mississippi.” Landgraf also noted that C.K. is going back on the road with new stand-up material and a special.

Landgraf told reporters that conversations are fluid about the show’s fate.

“It could be one of those things where he might call me up next month or next year and say, ‘I want to do the final season’ — to tell you the truth, we also had a conversation about ‘maybe this is a show that you’ll do periodically for the rest of your life. Maybe this is a show you’ll do in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s — God willing, your 80s.’ Maybe it will be one of those odd television shows that will have 15 seasons over 40 years. I really don’t know yet what it still may be.”

C.K., much like “Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” Larry David, has kept fans waiting before. He took a 19-month hiatus from the show beginning in late 2012, returning in 2014 with the show’s fourth season.

Asked if another scenario could be that there are no future seasons and that its fifth season, which wrapped last May, may very well be the end, Landgraf didn’t deny that could also be a possibility.

“He certainly hasn’t promised me future seasons of it,” Landgraf said. “Given that I have no commitment from him, I have to say it’s a possibility. But on the other hand, we still talk about making more seasons with some regularity.”

When C.K. appeared later in the day on the panel for “Baskets,” he was asked when he thinks the show will make its return.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know,” he said. “I think about it sometimes and I just don’t know. It’s such an autobiographical thing that I could do a version of ‘Louie’ when he’s 60.... By the time I want to, I might say, ‘Hey guys,’ and they’ll be like, ‘Who is this?’”

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