Showtime has signed “Yellowjackets” co-creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson to an overall deal, the network announced on Monday. The husband-and-wife duo will continue to serve as showrunners for the mystery series alongside fellow showrunner Jonathan Lisco, while also developing new projects exclusively for the network.
Gary Levine, who made the announcement with Jana Winograde, his fellow president of entertainment at Showtime Networks Inc., said in a statement, “Ashley and Bart are not only great writers, but they are also wildly original thinkers and creators. I’m not sure I would want to go camping with them, but I sure as hell love working with them, and I’m thrilled they will be working at Showtime for years to come.”
“Yellowjackets” received seven Emmy nominations for its freshman season: Outstanding Drama Series, two writing Emmys, acting nods for Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci, and nominations for directing and casting. The series has also been nominated for Best Drama Series and Best New Series by the Writers Guild of America.
“We are beyond grateful for Showtime’s partnership, advocacy, and vision throughout this whole process. David Nevins, Gary Levine, Jana Winograde, Amy Israel, Dave Binegar, and the whole team believed in the potential of ‘Yellowjackets’ and have been tenaciously supportive of us from the very beginning,” said Lyle and Nickerson. “We couldn’t imagine a better place to have landed (pun intended) and are thrilled to be continuing this journey with them. Buzz buzz buzz.”
The series, which takes place in two timelines as we follow the survivors of a plane crash of a female soccer team and their adult counterparts 25 years later, has a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Its first season averaged over 5 million weekly viewers across platforms in and was the second-most streamed series in the cabler’s history.
Production on the second season is set to go into production at the end of this month in Vancouver and wrap in February 2023. In a recent interview with TheWrap, Lyle confirmed that contracts are already in place for them and the cast if Showtime renews the series for a third season.
NIckerson and Lyle most recently served as co-executive producers on “Dispatches From Elsewhere” with Jason Segel at AMC. Previously, they were writers and producers on “Narcos” and “Narcos: Mexico.” They also developed the feature film “The Big Empty” and wrote for three seasons on The CW’s “The Originals.”
The Los Angeles-based pair met in the early 2000s on the East Coast where their writing partnership began.
