Eric Bana will be back as Kyle Turner, Investigative Services Branch agent of the National Parks Service.
Good news for viewers who have enjoyed (or are enjoying) the Netflix limited-run series Untamed: Looks like its run won’t be so limited after all.
Variety broke the story exclusively Tuesday: Untamed will be back for a second season, with Eric Bana returning as Kyle Turner, Investigative Services Branch agent of the National Parks Service.
“I am absolutely thrilled that we get the chance to bring another season of Untamed to life,” Bana said in a statement. “The response to Season 1 has been a testament to the incredible effort by our crew to deliver something truly unique. I can’t wait to take Kyle on his next journey. Massive thanks to Netflix, John Wells Productions, Warner Bros. Television and our fans.”
Co-created by Mark L. Smith (American Primeval, The Revenant) and Elle Smith (The Marsh King’s Daughter), Untamed followed Kyle Turner over the course of his investigation into a murder at Yosemite National Park during Season 1.
According to Variety, the series “debuted at number one on the Netflix global Top 10 English language shows chart for the week of July 14-20. With just a few days of availability, the show racked up an impressive 24.6 million views, with a view defined as total hours viewed divided by total runtime. That was more than double its closest competition for the week, which was Amy Bradley Is Missing with 12.2 million views.”
“Elle and I envisioned it as a stand-alone, six episodes,” Mark L. Smith says. “But then the more that we got into it, it was just such a great cast … it was just like, ‘Oh yeah, how do we keep this going?’ ”
The answer: Take Turner, who left Yosemite at the end of the Season 1, and place him in another park on another assignment.
“We’ve done Yosemite,” Elle Smith told Tudun, the official Netflix companion website. “What’s the next park that could feel different from that? Each national park has such a different cultural identity, geographical identity. Being able to explore those places through the case and through Turner’s journey is what's so fascinating.”
The central mystery also will change with the locale. “We can make the case organic to a different kind of park, a different kind of landscape, [and] not have someone just fall off another mountain,” Mark added.
“Our theme has been that this park is our main character, this park is sort of alive,” Elle says. “We do want to maintain that thread. Whichever park we choose will be a character and it will kind of play a role in Turner’s emotional frame of mind.”
