After a year largely dominated by talk of canceled shows and scrapped projects, Netflix got to enjoy some good news this week with the announcement of two major renewals.
In the past, Netflix has tended to move quickly to renew shows if they brought in large audiences to the streaming service. Bridgerton, for example, got renewals for a third and fourth season even before the second aired. That's why so many fans of Netflix's hit drama Heartstopper were so worried when it took a few weeks for its renewal to be confirmed. In the end, two more seasons stalled, so all's well that ends well.
The first of Netflix's renewals matches the streaming giant's previous models. The Lincoln Lawyer debuted just over a month ago and now a second season of the show has been confirmed.
The best lawyer in LA is back. The Lincoln Lawyer will return for season 2 on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/9VRKONBzmXJune 14, 2022
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The Lincoln Lawyer is an adaptation of a series of novels by author Michael Connelly. Connelly, who is also the man behind Prime Video's hit series Bosch, created the character of Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of a chauffeured Lincoln Continental instead of an office.
The character was brought to the big screen in 2011 with Matthew McConaughey playing Haller. Although it was a modest box office success, a sequel was never made, and the character moved to television with Netflix.
In the Netflix version of the character, Manuel García-Rulfo stars as Haller, with Neve Campbell, Becki Newton, Jazz Raycole, Angus Sampson and Christopher Gorham in supporting roles.
The show, which adapts Connelly's 2008 novel The Brass Verdict, the sequel to The Lincoln Lawyer, has been a huge hit with Netflix subscribers, amassing over 230 million hours of viewing with four weeks on the Top 10 Streamer. World (opens in a new tab). A renewal seemed like an easy decision.
Its second season will focus on Connelly's novel The Fifth Witness, which is the fourth in Connelly's series of Haller-centric novels. Why is Netflix skipping the third book in the series? Well, in the novels, Haller is the half-brother of Harry Bosch, Connelly's other key creation, and often acts as his lawyer, as he does in the third Lincoln Lawyer book, The Reversal.
With Bosch tied to Prime Video, there won't be a crossover anytime soon and you can imagine why Connelly and the creative team at Amazon wouldn't want anyone else to play Bosch...
So what is the other renewal?
Sweet Home, the Korean drama that Netflix has now renewed for a second and third season.
The drama, based on the Naver webtoon of the same name by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan, follows Cha Hyun-soo, a high school student who is forced to move into an apartment building after a family tragedy.
As soon as he puts down his suitcase, the apocalypse begins and legions of monsters try to annihilate humanity. Trapped inside the building, Hyun-su and other residents try to turn the place into a fortress in hopes of surviving as long as they can.
It took the streaming giant a long time to block this, considering the show's first season was removed at the end of 2020. Sweet Home was actually the first series from South Korea to enter Netflix's Top 10 in the United States, paving the way. for the great success of Squid Game. It finished in the Top 10 in 42 different countries.
Confirming the news, Netflix's press release promised that "...in these new seasons, Sweet Home will take on a larger scale with an expanded story and cast."
Lee Eung-bok, who supervised the first broadcast, will return for the second, promising that the show's second season will "take place in a new setting."
Sweet Home's renewal follows the official confirmation of a second season of Squid Game, as well as Netflix's previous renewals of zombie horror series All Of Us Are Dead and Japanese fantasy series Alice in Borderland.
Netflix's anime output may be contracting, but its expansion into Korean and Japanese fantasy dramas continues apace.
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