‘The Rising’ Season 2 Canceled by Sky Shortly Before Going Into Production (EXCLUSIVE)
“The Rising” Season 2 has been canceled just months before production was due to start, Variety has learned.
Cast and crew were gearing up for the Sky Studios show when they were told to down tools two months before principal photography got underway. “It was canceled before they were due to start filming,” a source familiar with the project told Variety. “All the cast and everything [were ready to go] and they just pulled the plug.”
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Variety understands there were a “number of reasons” the production will not go ahead.
The second season, which was set to be titled “Risen,” was due to have a similar premise to the first but with different characters, settings and themes, turning the show into something of an anthology series.
The debut season of the supernatural crime thriller, which was Sky Studios’ first entirely in-house production, starred Clara Ruggaard as the ghost of a woman determined to track down her killer .
Comcast-owned Sky had not previously confirmed that a Season 2 was in the works, with a source close to the project telling Variety the original show, which was adapted from Belgian crime thriller titled “Hotel Beau Séjour,” was “always conceived as a limited, event series.”
Last year showrunner Pete McTighe told the Radio Times he had already mapped out the second season. “I have already written a plan for a second [season], and I think it’s really exciting and interesting,” he said. “I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to jinx it. I want it to happen.”
The show, which was written by McTighe and Charlotte Wolf, launched last spring after a long gestation period and a production schedule beleagured by COVID. McTighe also exec produced the show alongside Serena Thompson for Sky Studios and Julian Stevens.
The first season also starred Nenda Neururer (“A Brief History of Struggle”), Solly McLeod (“Boxing Day”), Daniel Ings (“I Hate Suzie”), Emily Taaffe (“Rare Beasts”), Alex Lanipekun (“Spooks”) and Robyn Cara (“Ackley Bridge”).
Sky declined to comment for this story. A rep for McTighe did not respond to Variety by publication time.
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