THE FLOOR: Anthony Carbone on the Post-Super Bowl Slot and Season 3 Being ‘Our Strongest Season’

THE FLOOR gets the biggest platform in entertainment on Sunday, February 9 as the third season airs after the Super Bowl.

The decision, however, came late in the game—RESCUE HI-SURF was initially set to get the slot—after the show had filmed its third season. Thankfully, THE FLOOR team was prepared to make necessary tweaks to the episode.

“Finding out that we got to go after [the] Super Bowl is incredible,” THE FLOOR showrunner Anthony Carbone tells Give Me My Remote. “It’s just such a stamp of confidence from Fox. And to us, as a team, it’s exciting that a larger audience will get to see us. And it makes sense: It’s such a fun play-along gathering type of show that it just makes sense after the Super Bowl.”

“But for us, we were thrilled: ‘Oh, this is amazing,’” he continues. “You will have no bigger audience ever. In terms of the episode, the episode’s a little longer. We wanted to get to the gameplay much quicker. So [we] made sure that the open’s really short and then just got into the gameplay.”

Because the show was intended to premiere the week of the Super Bowl, anyway, “we already had within it certain elements…some language that was already there, so we could utilize all that stuff,” Carbone shares. “And then at the back end of the show, we have a pretty deep tease into what’s to come in the season. So hopefully we invest some new viewers who see the chaos that’s going to be season 3. Season 3 is, I think, our strongest season. There’s so many weird and incredible things that happen in season 3; really unique, unique gameplay that I think viewers will love.”

Though season 2 finished airing in December, it and season 3 were filmed back-to-back.

“We prepped season 2 and 3 simultaneously,” Carbone says. “So we cast season 2 and 3  simultaneously, as well as [prepping] all the content that was made for it, all the categories and the photos and stuff. And then in terms of the way we shot it, our schedule is two to three episodes a day, so we shoot five days, and then we had three days down to kind of recuperate and have the content team re-pivot to what season 3 was, and then five more days of shooting for the season 3.” 

“It’s quite an undertaking because doing two seasons back-to-back, you have around 11,000 photos that you have to make for categories, because every category has a set amount of photos in it, you don’t want to run out, etc,” he continues. “All those photos need to be found, vetted, re-conformed to fit and photoshopped and put in different back plates, whatever it is. And it’s just a massive amount of information that has to be found and made game playable.”

Much like season 2 included new elements to the gameplay, Carbone teases there are changes afoot in season 3, too.

“There will be a new wrinkle in [the way clues are distributed],” Carbone previews. “And we had some fun casting in season 3 that we brought into it, as well. So we wanted to make sure that season 3 was an elevation in its own way, and had certain differences from season 2. It definitely feels different. The thing is, what’s crazy about this game is it always plays differently—it just depends on how the contestants play it. And season 3 is strikingly different than how season 2 played out.”

RELATED:

• THE FLOOR Post-Mortem: Anthony Carbone Reflects on the Season 2 Winner
• THE FLOOR: Anthony Carbone Dishes on Season 2’s Changes and Big Final Showdown
• Fox Swaps Post-Super Bowl Series to THE FLOOR
• Fox Renews THE FLOOR

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