With nearly three years between seasons, Severance has turn into one of many prime examples of the sluggish tv manufacturing tempo within the streaming period. Of course, there have been exterior points that prolonged the wait, primarily the twin writers and actors strikes of 2023. Nevertheless, the delay on considered one of Apple TV+’s most critically acclaimed new sequence raised eyebrows and sparked rumors about discord behind the scenes. Now that the second season is lastly in sight, govt producer Ben Stiller and sequence author and creator Dan Erickson are lastly providing some perception.
Erickson steered the lengthy wait was as a result of it’s a “very intricate present” and admitted that “the writing was essentially the most painstaking a part of the method.” In a brand new interview with Vanity Fair, he stated that “typically we’d give you one thing that labored completely effectively on paper, after which it wouldn’t be till we acquired there and we’re capturing it that we notice: This isn’t fairly it. We had been by no means keen to let that flip it into one thing that wasn’t good.”
Stiller, who additionally serves as a director on the sequence, laid out the timeline: After taking “some time” to write down, “we began to shoot in October of 2022, and we acquired shut down by the strike in May [2023]. At that time, we had accomplished about 7 of our 10 episodes, after which we needed to regroup after the strike,” he defined. “It takes us some time to prep the present. And so, we didn’t begin capturing till January [2024]. Then we shot from January to May to complete the final three episodes.”
Erickson added that the present shoots “fairly methodically, and we in all probability don’t flip round as many pages of script per day as numerous different reveals.” Further, the writers had give you “total places that we had been planning to go to. We had already constructed or partially constructed them after we realized, ‘Oh, that’s not going to work,’” Erickson revealed. “Those aren’t all the time enjoyable calls to have with the studio, the place you’re. like, ‘Hey, you recognize that factor you set numerous sources into? Well, we’re not going to do it now, or we’re going to do one thing that’s completely totally different.’ But once more, on the finish of the day, it’s value it.”
Interestingly, what Erickson is describing would appear to corroborate these tales that main rewrites led to ballooning budgets on the present (rumored within the $20 million an episode vary). Severance sources, together with Stiller himself, all the time denied that there had been any main modifications in funds or schedule. A manufacturing supply advised The A.V. Club in 2023 that Erickson, co-showrunner Mark Friedman, and House Of Cards creator Beau Willimon (who was introduced on for the second season) had been all working collectively with out subject, opposite to the rumors on the time. But it does sound prefer it took an excellent period of time to determine methods to proceed the story after such a propulsive begin with the primary season. Hopefully, as Erickson says, it’ll be definitely worth the wait. In the meantime, you may learn up on what he and Stiller are teasing over at VF.
