Producer Dean Baker has confirmed the greatest piece of media with Tom Hardy’s name attached to it is finally receiving a follow-up with Taboo season 2 (for real this time).
The BBC period drama, which the Venom actor co-created with his father Chips Hardy and Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), was initially renewed back in 2017, but production has obviously faced multiple delays; the younger Hardy and Knight having become victims to their own success.
Now, the wheels are once again in motion.
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“Currently we are working on a second season of Taboo, and hopefully we will get to explore more Dickens [like Great Expectations] with Steve, Ridley, and Tom,” Baker explained to Radio Times.
This latest update aligns with the comments made by Steven Knight last year, who had hinted that something was in the works.
“I imagine that it will start production towards the end of next year,” said Knight.
“[Tom and I] are both keen to continue and there are lots of people who want us to continue in that direction. It’s been a question of schedules and deciding where it goes next.”
Prior to this, Knight had revealed “six of the eight” episodes had already been written.
The question of “where it goes next,” of course, will be quite a fascinating one.
Set in 1814, during the tail-end of Great Britain’s war against the nascent United States, the first season of Taboo followed the exploits of former solider, adventurer, and businessman James Delaney (Hardy).
Delaney returns to England – and “back from the dead” – after spending twelve years in Africa following the passing of his father. Shortly after his arrival, he inherits the daddy dearest’s shipping empire… in addition to a piece of strategically-placed land both the East India Company and the Crown are apparently willing to kill for.
After the bombshell finale, however, much like the New World, the sophomore instalment offers a wealth of opportunity in terms of storytelling.
“The second season of Taboo is really, really important to me, and it’s taken a lot of thinking, because I really enjoyed the first one and I want to be really fulfilled by the second one,” said Tom Hardy (via Esquire).
“We’re still playing with ideas: you could go linear, a continuation of time, or we could drop prior to London, or we could quantum-leap through time! I don’t know whether to go orthodox – there’s a series of that already written – but I don’t know if that’s the right way to go.”
Hardy added: “In my head I was thinking, ‘Let’s say they get to America, they get to Canada, fast-forward to 1968, the Tet Offensive, the Vietnam War, look at the CIA, the Viet Cong, the French in Saigon…'”
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“Take the Delaney family tree out in the jungle, and recreate the same family dynamics that were happening in London but with new people, thinking about how history and corruption repeats itself. It’s still Taboo, it’s still period, but it’s the 60s. There’s something fun about that.”
“Or do we go back to the 1800s? The Napoleonic Wars? The American War of Independence?’ But nothing’s crossed my heart and mind and desk where I’ve gone ‘That’s it!’ so I’m hanging fire.”
Guess everyone outside of the production will simply have to wait and see.
We’ll keep you abreast on all things Taboo season 2 here.
