Playwright/screenwriter Anna Ouyang Moench (“Beef,” “Severance”) has been set as showrunner, writer, and executive producer for the second season of the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” TV series on Amazon Prime Video.
Moench takes over from series co-creator Francesca Sloane, who served as showrunner for the first season. Sloane was originally set to return, but delays over cast issues and her shift to HBO for an overall deal saw that change.
Some of the second season had been written before it was paused. Mark Eydelshteyn (“Anora”) and Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”) were cast in the lead roles for the new season a year ago and are still attached.
Maya Erskine and co-creator Donald Glover co-starred in the first season, and Glover is involved creatively. With Moench on board, a new production start date is being lined up with a spring-summer start, meaning they would be able to keep a $22.4 million tax credit the production received last March.
Peter Friedlander, Global Head of Television, Amazon MGM Studios says in a statement: “Anna is a phenomenal storyteller with an incredible ability to balance character-driven drama, sharp humor, and emotional depth. Her work on Beef and Severance speaks for itself, and we’re thrilled to have her at the helm of Mr. and Mrs. Smith Season 2 as she builds on the series’ compelling world and pushes it into exciting new territory for our global Prime Video customers.”
Lily-Rose Depp, Francesca Scorsese, Levon Hawke, Wagner Moura and Gael Garcia Bernal were all linked as potential guest stars for the new season, it’s not clear if any of them will be re-approached once the new filming dates are locked.
Source: Deadline
