There’s more from the makers of Yellowjackets on the way if you enjoy the strangeness it delivers to each episode. The creators of Billions and The Chi, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, have extended their partnership with Showtime by signing an overall contract, as was revealed by the premium cable channel on Monday. You may rest easy knowing that Emmy finalists Lyle and Nickerson, along with colleague writer and showrunner Jonathan Lisco, will continue to showrun the globally successful series Yellowjackets after this arrangement (Animal Kingdom).
To add to their already extensive Showtime duties, the pair will now be in charge of developing and directing original content for the network. President of Entertainment at Showtime Networks Gary Levine made the news, and he made a joke about Yellowjackets’ strange plot while praising the show’s creative staff. Besides being fantastic authors, Ashley and Bart are also incredibly creative thinkers. While I’m not sure I’d invite them on a camping trip with me, I appreciate having them as coworkers and am excited that they’ll be staying at Showtime for the foreseeable future. Lyle and Nickerson both expressed gratitude to Showtime for their support and expressed enthusiasm for future collaborations.
We can’t thank Showtime enough for its support, activism, and foresight throughout this entire endeavour. Everyone from David Nevins and Gary Levine to Jana Winograde and Amy Israel to Dave Binegar and the rest of the team has been relentless in their belief in Yellowjackets’ potential and their support of the team ever since we first started. We’re overjoyed to be continuing our adventure with them and can’t think of a finer place to have landed (pardon the pun). It’s a buzz, a buzz, a buzz.” The plot of Yellowjackets splits its time between the aftermath of an aircraft disaster in the ’90s that stranded a whole team of young girls playing soccer in the wilderness and the lives of the survivors in the current day, where they are haunted by the tragedy of their past.
Showtime claims that Season 1 had an average of nearly 5 million viewers across all platforms, making it the network’s second-most streamed original series ever. The second season is presently under preproduction, and shooting will begin in Vancouver next week. Melanie Lynskey (Castle Rock), Juliette Lewis (The Hateful Eight), Christina Ricci (Z: The Beginning of Everything), Tawny Cypress (Unforgettable), Ella Purnell (Sweetbitter), Samantha Hanratty (Shameless), Sophie Thatcher (Prospect), Sophie Nélisse (The Book Thief), Steven Krueger (The Originals), and Warren Kole are among the cast members (Shades of Blue). Among the new, high-profile cast members are Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings films), Lauren Ambrose (Servant), and Simone Kessell (Obi-Wan Kenobi).
Although Showtime has not officially announced it, Season 2 of Yellowjackets is expected to launch in early 2023.