Netflix is bringing back The Haunting of Hill House for season 2 but with a bit of a twist. The show will be returning as anthology series and the haunting will be taking place somewhere new.
The new season will be getting a new name: The Haunting of Bly Manor. The second run of the show will take its inspiration from “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. The 1898 novella depicts an Essex country house and a governess who has been hired to look after a pair of siblings. Her work gets severely complicated by the apparent existence of several ghosts around the manor, as well as the grip they may hold over the children.
The first Haunting season took on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House” and much like that adaptation, Bly Manor has seen a few interpretations of its own. It was a stage play in 1950 called The Innocents and it was also adapted into a film of the same name in 1961. Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens also starred in an adaptation for BBC One in 2009 and in 2020, Universal Pictures is set to release a contemporary adaptation called The Turning, set in Maine and comes from director Floria Sigismondi and stars Finn Wolfhard. Beyond straightforward adaptations, it also inspired the 2001 Nicole Kidman thriller, The Others.
The Haunting creator, executive producer, and director Mike Flanagan and executive producer Trevor Macy will shepherd the second season under a multi-year overall television deal they have signed with Netflix. Under the duo’s Netflix deal, they will develop and produce new series exclusively for streamer, along with the second season of The Haunting. Flanagan and Macy’s focus is expected to remain on horror, thriller, supernatural thriller and sci-fi though they are said to also be open to other genres in their TV development for Netflix.
No word on if the anthology series will go the American Horror Story route and use the same cast from its first season but in different roles. It’s said to be an option but no decision on casting has been made as of yet. The second season of The Haunting will premiere in 2020.
