Hiroyuki Sanda, Courtesy of FX

 

 

FX and Hulu confirmed this week that they are in the process of developing two more seasons of Shōgun, based on James Clavell’s epic 1975 novel set in Edo-period Japan.

To accomplish these goals, a writers’ room will get underway this summer to map out a creative strategy. Included will be writers Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo as well as executive producer Michaela Clavell and leading actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who is also a producer of the series. For his part, Sanada signed an agreement that he would return in the starring role if FX wanted to create additional seasons for the acclaimed production.

At the end of the first season last month, Marks was quoted as saying: “I think if we had a story, if we could find a story, we would be open to it. …It’s also just about, do people want more of it? But it’s also about, not even topping the book, but how do you even equal the roadmap that Clavell laid out? And I don’t know if it’s possible.”

That 10-episode first season of Shōgun concluded in April after setting records as the most-watched and costliest scripted show it has ever made. Their efforts paid off when its debut attracted some nine million streaming views via Hulu, Disney+, and Star+. This is not the first time Clavell’s novel has been adapted for television: in 1980, Richard Chamberlain starred in a miniseries broadcast on NBC.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in February of this year, FX’s chief executive officer John Landgraf was quoted as saying that a favorable audience response to Shōgun might pave the way for similar ambitious projects: “It depends on how successful it is and whether there’s an appetite for it,” he said. “Ultimately, the audience gets to decide whether it’s something they want. I would hope if we were able do something like that it wouldn’t take 11 years. … [A]s long as there’s appetite for that in the viewers, I think it’ll be possible at times to do that kind of work.”

Shōgun is a historical narrative of the fate of the English sailor John Blackthorne, who confronts powerful daimyos after he is shipwrecked in Japan during a period of conflict in the seventeenth century.
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