Is there a second season of Shogun? FX Show Creators Address Series’ Future | web series
Episode 4 of Shogun is right around the corner. While fans await its premiere on FX, Hulu and Disney+ on Tuesday, March 12, the show’s creators, Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, have already discussed the show’s fate beyond the finale. Ahead of the previously held spot for the top streaming debut of an FX entry on Hulu, Shogun bested The Bear Season 2 opener. Starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai, Cosmo Jarvis, Tadanobu Asano and more, Shogun brings an epic vision of feudal Japan back to life.
It is based on the novel by James Clavell (1975), which was previously adapted into a miniseries in 1980. However, Marks and Kondo stated that the 2024 release was its own thing and lacked the former adaptation. The 10-episode limited series is ongoing and has not yet passed the halfway mark. However, the creative pair seem to have put a leg to Shogun Season 2 speculation that was bound to overtake them, given how well their production is doing for itself.
Recognizing the larger era of Clavell’s 1,000-page novel was not easy for either of them. Marks and Kondo knew what they were writing about. Despite the “painful process” of revising this old interpretation of Japanese culture, the couple fell in love with everything related to the world of Clavel. Although the series takes place in the historical setting of the samurai era, its expanded, “modern, crossover” look, steeped in realism, offers worthy insights that resonate with today’s reality. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the couple opened up about their plans for the future of the show.
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Creators Discuss Shogun Season 2 Prospects:
It all has to do with parenthood, especially since Mark and Kondo had two children during the show’s production, they feel like they gave their characters everything they could in the first season. Marks observed, “We moved the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence.” And they both love the story finale. This suggests that they’ve told the story they’re hoping to tell, they don’t see the point in stretching it out, leading to a super saturated mix in the future that could ruin the golden memory they’ve built with the first season.
Despite reminding us of the show’s early success, Marks gave us another reality check with his words, leading us to believe that if a second season of Shogun was a reality, they would be filming right now. However, since this is not the case, the creatives have drawn up the final line from their end.
After the disappointing news broke, a THR interviewer recommended another period novel built along the same lines of feudal Japan, but set later than The Thousand Autumns of the Shogun — David Mitchell’s Jacob de Zoet. Marks seems quite agreeable to his adaptation as a “pseudo-season”. Will this otherworldly spinoff make it to live reality? Only another interview with Marks and Kondo in due course will tell.
