Today is a good news, bad news, weird news kind of day where we’re talking about a new announcement from Paramount+, which has once again decided to triple down on yet another Taylor Sheridan production.
That may be no surprise, but the strange part is just how long this has taken. Paramount has announced that Lioness, the SpecOps show starring the Oscar-winning Zoe Saldana, will return for season 3. Given that this has just happened now, eleven months after season 2 aired, that is not terribly good news for a potential season 3 release date.
The gap between seasons 1 and 2 of Lioness was about 15 months, actually on the short side of things in the streaming era. But if Lioness season 3 was just greenlit now? We can calculate that Lioness season 2 production began in May and took six months, that’s 15 months if it started today.
But the news that season 3 has been greenlit is obviously not coming alongside news that filming is beginning right this minute. We don’t know how long that will take, and giving it a few more months, we’re probably talking at least a year and a half if not closer to two years. A window would probably be February-May 2027, depending on how quickly things come together after this incredibly late renewal.
It’s not clear why it took so long to get Lioness renewed for season 3, as in the context of this industry, that’s an outrageously long time. Sometimes filming will start much later than it should, but actual renewal coming a year after a season airs is hardly something we ever see.
Lioness season 2 had a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, a big jump from the 56% of season 1. That puts it on the higher side of the “Sheridanverse” which includes Yellowstone and its spin-offs, Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown and new breakout hit Landman. Of note, Lioness is the only female-led series among these.
Paramount Plus exists on the shoulders of Sheridan and his expanding catalogue, and seems to be interested in letting essentially all of his series live on indefinitely, even some that are not grabbing as many headlines. I really would like to know what exactly happened here that delayed this renewal announcement by 11 months (Zoe Saldana did win an Oscar during that time for Emilia Perez), but I mean, we made it here. It’s just going to be a very long wait to actually see season 3 now.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/10/01/some-bad-news-about-lioness-season-3-release-date-on-paramount/
