The fate of One Piece continues to be up in the air, however, we do have a new update about season 2, albeit one not from Netflix itself, and not confirmation of renewal.
This is from the producers of the series, who told Variety that they already have scripts done for One Piece season 2, which were finished ahead of the Writers Strike. There’s also a timetable on when a season 2 may arrive, which could even be next year.
“Realistically, hopefully, a year away, if we move very quickly, and that is a possibility,” producer Becky Clements said. “Somewhere between a year and 18 months, we could be ready for air.”
One Piece stayed on top of Netflix’s Top 10 list for a little less than a week but is dropping rather quickly. There is a difference between performing well on Netflix and performing well to justify the budget of a big show like this, and Netflix has killed shows for worse. However, the producers are confident that Netflix supports the show and that they will be back for season 2.
“They keep it, as you know, close to the vest until post-launch,” Clements said. “But with Netflix’s support of the title, we expected it to be number one and we sensed their research and algorithms probably saw the possibility for that. But in our subsequent calls post-launch, we have been told that we have exceeded expectations, which is also fantastic.”
That’s…very good news. If they’re saying outright that Netflix told them the series has exceeded expectations that would definitely be an indicator for renewal. Though I do wonder if by speaking to the press, the idea is to capitalize on the current support of the series by fans and force Netflix’s hand a bit. Netflix itself won’t comment on season 2 renewal.
I didn’t realize this, but Tomorrow Studios, the One Piece production company, was also behind the failed Cowboy Bebop reboot, which fans generally did not love and was cancelled by Netflix after season 1. But this time, with high critic and audience scores and solid viewership, things seem more promising.
The producers say they expect to hear from Netflix in the next 1-2 weeks, and all they’re trying to figure out now is how many episodes season 2 should be, and if they should be broken up. They also say they’re going to come up with a “long term strategy” for the show. The One Piece anime is over a 1,000 episodes long, and this season covered about 44 of those in eight Netflix episodes. So in theory that’s…22 seasons. Okay so maybe not that long-term, but still, there’s essentially no end to the source material.
All of this sounds quite promising. We rarely hear this much detail about even potential future seasons, and if they’re already talking about how Netflix positively received the show, that’s great to hear. Hopefully we’ll hear something official soon.
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