‘American Crime Story’ to focus on Katrina disaster

Meet your new George W. Bush: Dennis Quaid.

The actor from such movies as “Wyatt Earp” and “A Dog’s Purpose” will portray the former president in “Katrina: American Crime Story,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

FX’s crime anthology series enjoyed a massively successful first season that chronicled the racially charged trial of O.J. Simpson. It was nominated for 22 Emmys, making itthe most-nominated show of 2015,and won nine.

“The Ferguson stuff was going down and the Black Lives Matter movement had begun” when they were preparing for that season, executive producer Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Weekly. “We were shooting stuff that had already been written months before, and we were like, ‘Wow, the more things change, the more things stay the same.‘ It was heartbreaking. I think all of us felt an obligation to get that stuff right.”

For the show’s second season, Mr. Murphy decided to focus on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which caused widespread destruction along the Gulf Coast.

“I want this show to be a socially conscious, socially aware examination of different types of crime around the world,” Mr. Murphy told the Hollywood Reporter of the new series. He said he considers Katrina “a crime against a lot of people who didn’t have a strong voice, and we’re going to treat it as a crime.”

Mr. Bush was criticized for the federal government’s response to the disaster, which left many people stranded on bridges and roofs for days.

The series is expected to air in 2018.