When will the filming for Yellowjackets season 3 start?

American thriller drama Yellowjackets has been renewed for a third season, much to the excitement of fans. Equal parts a survival epic and coming-of-age story, the show has managed to garner global appreciation for its intriguing, first-of-a-kind storyline and its exceptionally talented star cast.

The show is an all-female adaptation of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, which is a novel that follows a group of boys who get stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to establish rules and authority. Similarly, the show promotes a similar premise as it follows a group of New Jersey high school girls' soccer team in the year 1996 as they travel to Seattle for a national tournament. The team's plane crashes, leaving the surviving members of the team stranded on an uninhabited island for nineteen months.

The show focuses on the team members' lives as they try to survive and sustain their limited resources, with many turning to cannibalism. It also focuses on the lives of the characters 25 years later, following their rescue, and shows how they try to cope with the trauma of the horrific event.

Yellowjackets is created by American screenwriters Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson and distributed by the streaming platform Showtime.

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Yellowjackets season 3's filming is halted due to the Writers Guild of America Strike

A still from Yellowjackets (Image via Rotten Tomatoes)

The show had been renewed for a third season on December 15, 2022, and the writing for the same was scheduled to begin in May 2023. The Web News Observer reveals that the Yellowjackets writers did in fact begin writing for the third season of the show on May 1, 2023. However, it was halted due to the beginning of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike on May 2, 2023.

Show creator Ashley Lyle also tweeted about the same:

“Well, we had exactly one day in the #Yellowjackets S3 writers’ room. It was amazing and creatively invigorating and so much fun, and I’m very excited to get back to it as soon as the #WGA gets a fair deal. #1u #UnionStrong.”

While fans of the show had predicted the arrival of season 3 sometime in the winter of this year, it is reasonable to assume that won't be possible, keeping in mind the writer's strike. Despite the early renewal of the upcoming season, the process of writing and filming the show will naturally take a significant period of time.

Assuming that the Writers Guild Strike comes to an end this year, the filming for the show could commence sometime this year itself and could likely premiere in late spring or early summer of 2024. Fans have supported the show's decision to delay season 3 and have also lauded creator Ashley Lyle for her initiative to stand with the writer's union.

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More about Yellowjackets season 3 plot and cast

The cast of Yellowjackets (Image via IMDb)

While the show's creators have not given much specifics about the upcoming season, they have announced that the show will feature a total of five seasons. This has led to speculation among fans that the next season of the show, being in the middle of the series, marks the second summer of the girls in the wilderness. Fans of the show are aware that warmer weather is ideal for the survivors, as it is easier to feed and hunt.

However, viewers also know that feeding is not as easy as an activity in the show because hunting and rationing food have always led to fights breaking out in the group. As for the adult former Yellowjackets, fans are expecting the group to engage in even more crime and murder as they try to cope with the tragic events that they witnessed.

It is also expected that the original cast of the show will return for yet another season. The original cast includes Melanie Lynskey, Sophie Nélisse, Tawny Cypress, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Ella Purnell, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole, and Christina Ricci, among numerous others.

However, the show managed to make headlines last season for its new additions to the cast, which included Simone Kessell, Lauren Ambrose, Francois Arnaud, and Elijah Wood. Fans have wondered whether season 3 could feature more new additions and have been very vocal about who would they like to see in the upcoming season.

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Yellowjackets season 3 is likely to premiere in late spring or early summer 2024.