Lee Daniels Announces Empire Spinoff

If Lee Daniels has his way, there will be two versions of Empire on television and with the recent announcement of a greenlight for season 4 of the music industry-based drama, Lee appears to have the keys to the house!!

The co-creator of the Fox hip-hop drama told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday, following his time onstage at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour touting freshman series Star, that there would be a second show stemming from the ratings hit.

“We’re in talks,” Daniels added. “We’re finally figuring it out. It takes a minute, you know? We just really had to build the foundation of Empire, so we then try to figure out what that B-chorus is. It looks like it’s going to happen.”

When pressed for details, Daniels remained mum on whether the spinoff could be for this current pilot season or if it would be a planted episode that serves as a back-door pilot. Also unclear is the firm premise, though there had been talk in August 2015 that a spinoff could serve as a prequel revolving around Taraji P. Henson’s character Cookie.

Daniels coyly mentioned, “It could be, we really are in deep talks about it, and we’re having all these ideas thrown around to figure it out. But I can officially say that we will be having a spinoff.”

Empire, which some claims is steadily dropping in its ratings, continues to rank as broadcast’s top-rated drama. In its third season, the series has faced new competition for the crown from NBC phenomenon This Is Us. Empire recently notched a series-low 2.5 in the all-important adults 18-49 demographic, but has served as an effective launch pad for Daniels-created music drama Star.

Daniels is not worried, so why should anyone else be?