Despite the gossip, HBO maintains that Euphoria will start production in January

So it goes today with the latest statement from Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content. “We are shooting Euphoria. I think we have a start date, mid to late January. Nothing’s changed,” he said at an HBO/Max press event on Tuesday (via Variety). “Somebody said something online, and then this whole thing started. We are shooting the season. I have read the scripts. We’re happy. We’re moving ahead.”

We will note the ever-so-slight lack of confidence betrayed in the phrasing, “I think we have a start date,” but Bloys otherwise sounded pretty definitive that the show is coming back for a third season, which will have eight episodes, and feature its same impressive stable of actors. “I know the show gets a lot of attention now because it has created some genuine movie stars, and they have various projects that they’re working on,” he said (via Deadline). “But we are shooting this season, so nothing has changed.”

“Nothing has changed” seems to be the party line (that was about the full content of HBO’s previous statement on the matter last week). Yet those of us on Euphoria watch know better than to count our chickens before they hatch. Now, if the network were to announce that the show was pivoting focus to a new set of young characters while Zendaya goes off to shoot three major blockbusters, that might actually convince the haters and the doubters that the show will go on. But even then, we won’t really believe in the third season of Euphoria ’til we see it.