Writer’s Room Fills Up For ‘The Night Manager’ Season 2
Although break out smash hit ‘The Night Manager’ still hasn’t officially been commisioned for a 2nd season, the writer’s room for the Season 2 script is been packed to the gills with A-list talent.
As we announced back in March last year, plans to continue the show had been put into development by production company The Ink Factory and its partners, the BBC and AMC. Season 1 of the show saw Tom Hiddleston play ex-forces-turn-hotel-manager Jonathan Pine, who is recruited by Angela Burr (Olivia Colman) to infiltrate the inner circle of arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper (Hugh Laurie).
The problem is, author John Le Carré didn’t write a follow up to ‘The Night Manager’, so there is not original work on which to base a new series. Plus, up until now, Le Carré has never allowed an adaptation which isn’t directly based on one of his novels. Although, The Ink Factory was founded by his sons, Simon and Stephen Cornwell, so that may have had some sway over the author.
It was initially announced that up-and-coming British writer Matthew Orton was working on the script back in November last year. He has now been joined by a trio of writers including British spy novelist Charles Cumming, ‘Humans’ and ‘Black Mirror’ writer Namsi Khan and ‘The Man In The High Castle’ scribe, Francesca Gardiner.
In a recent interview, Cumming commented “Le Carré has never allowed one of his stories to have a [film or TV] sequel that is not based on a novel. So our job is to write a season that’s going to be even better than the first one, but also stay faithful to the tone of the world that was created by le Carré and to the characters.” He goes on to add “All I am permitted to say is that le Carré has given his blessing to the project. The four of us in the writers’ room are sworn to silence. Some characters that the audience know and love will be returning, other will not. The locations will be sumptuous, the plot as thrilling and as thematically complex as a le Carré story should be. We are all aware that the bar has been set very high in terms of audience expectations. The challenge facing us is to meet those expectations, hopefully even to surpass them.”
Cumming’s work includes the Alec Milius novels, starting with 2001’s ‘A Spy by Nature’ and Thomas Kell series which started with the 2012 book ‘A Foreign Country’. Namsi Khan wrote an episode of ‘Humans’ season 3, and was part of the writers’ room for ‘Black Mirror’ and Sky One’s recent hit drama ‘Bulletproof’. Francesca Gardiner has written episodes of ‘The Man In The High Castle’, ‘Medici: Masters of Florence’, and ‘Crossing Lines’. She is currently working with ‘Twilight’ writer Stephenie Meyer on an adaptation of Daniel O’Malley’s spy thriller ‘The Rook’, which is being produced by ‘The Night Manager‘s’ Stephen Garrett.
As we said at the top of the article, ‘The Night Manager’ Season 2 has not officially been recommissioned yet, so this may all come to nothing. I suspect they would like a script which is not only acceptable to the BBC & AMC, but also has Le Carré’s seal of approval before moving forward. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
