Only Murders in the Building Season 3 Trailer Features Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd

The show must go on in the first trailer for Only Murders in the Building season 3. “It’s opening night, and a big star drops dead on stage,” says sleuth Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), recapping the sudden death of actor Ben Gilroy (Paul Rudd) at the end of season 2. If show director Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) hopes to save his Broadway return, the trio of Mabel, Oliver, and Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) will have to solve the murder mystery before its curtains on the Hulu whodunnit (returning August 8th). 

The cast of suspects include scorned actress Loretta Durkin (Meryl Streep), who Ben tried to boot from the show, and TikTok-addicted starlet Kimber (Ashley Park), who Charles suggests might have done it as an “Internet meme.” With Mabel investigating the case with Tobert (Jesse Williams), the stage is set for a killer theatrical production featuring original music by the composers of La La Land, Waitress, and Hairspray.

Reads the official logline for the season 3 premiere, titled “The Show Must…”: “Curtain up on season 3! And leading man down! After Ben Gilroy’s collapse on stage, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel piece together the show’s first days with a suspicious cast & crew to determine if foul play was involved.”

“I will only tease further to say what’s coming is so crazy and delightful. I’m thrilled about where we are in Season 3,” executive producer and series co-creator John Hoffman previously told EW, adding the third season will lean into “the theatrics” away from the Arconia.

“I am a kid raised in the school of the theater, so leaning into the theatrical, leaning into Oliver’s sensibilities, dancing in that territory feels really exciting, and we are not going to be shy about it,” Hoffman said. “It’s going to feel differently because there’s an innate sense around our title, and our characters, and that trio is magic. How to freshen that up and progress them individually but also to pull them back together, and the ways in which they’ve been out of touch, and the ways in which they have found more conflict, potentially, in the last year that we traverse, there’s a lot of great stuff.”

Hoffman added: “We reset them a little bit, reset their world, and yet the Arconia is still very present in season 3. What could have happened in that year? Who could have come into their lives? What do their lives look like now? We have a fresh start because we don’t know everyone who could be involved potentially, and we can get to play with that.”

Only Murders in the Building season 3 is streaming August 8th on Hulu.