The first details have emerged about Shogun season 2 – including its filming start date and how far it will move past the source material.
Shogun's second season will begin filming in January 2026 in Vancouver. It will be set 10 years after the first season (which adapted the entirety of James Clavell's 1975 novel of the same name) and "continues the historically-inspired saga" amidst the backdrop of a tense Japanese political landscape in the 17th Century.
Hiroyuki Sanada is back as Lord Toranaga (for which he won the Emmy for best actor in a drama series). He will be joined once more by Cosmo Jarvis' John Blackthorne.
Given the events at the tail-end of the first season, we should not expect Mariko actor Anna Sawai nor Yabushige actor Tadanobu Asano to return, but it's unknown if they will feature in a different capacity.
Previously, Sanada told Variety that half of the cast will be “new characters coming in" and, now that it's moving past Clavell's seminal novel, that the writers' room would both "enjoy the freedom" and "respect the novel."
Despite winning a record 18 Emmys, not everyone was enthused by the success of Shogun, which charted the fierce battle for power in one of Japan's most fraught historical eras.
Jerry London, the director of '80s miniseries Shogun, told The Hollywood Reporter, "I've talked to many people that have watched it, and they said, 'I had to turn it off because I don't understand it.' So the filmmakers of the new one really didn't care about the American audience."
He added, "It won all the awards because there were no big shows against it. There was not too much competition.”
Here are more of the new TV shows coming your way very soon.
