EXCLUSIVE: AMC is all in on its return to the prestige drama arena with an early Season 2 renewal for its Silicon Valley series from Jonathan Glatzer The Audacity.
The pickup comes days before the drama, starring Billy Magnussen, Sarah Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis, Lucy Punch, Simon Helberg and Rob Corddry, is set to premiere at South By Southwest on March 14. It also comes ahead of The Audacity‘s April 12 debut on AMC and AMC+. Preliminary casting for Season 2 is already underway. Like Season 1, it will consist of 8 episodes.
AMC announced itself as an original series player with Mad Men and Breaking Bad, both multiple Outstanding Drama Series Emmy winners. The network extended its streak with Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul and under-the-radar gems like Halt and Catch Fire while also broadening its audience with IP-based genre franchises like The Walking Bad and the Anne Rice universes.
Not having HBO or major streamers’ budgets has made it hard for AMC to compete — it heavily pursued Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s latest series, Pluribus, but was outbid by Apple TV — so the cable network has had to be scrappy. It has a current awards contender in the acclaimed noir thriller Dark Winds.
With The Audacity, AMC is first to market; it is the first of three high-profile Silicon Valley-set drama projects announced in 2024 to get on the air. The second, Robert and Michelle King’s legal drama Cupertino, is set to premiere during the 2026-27 broadcast season. The third, Netflix’s corporate thriller Thumblite, has been in limbo after multiple showrunner departures, including creator Scott Z. Burns.
“From the start, The Audacity exists because Kristin Dolan, Dan McDermott, and AMC Networks decided that ‘playing it safe’ is vastly overrated,” Glatzer said. “They’ve enabled me and our fearless cast to dive headfirst into the deep recesses of some beautifully flawed characters, all set against the backdrop of Silicon Valley, which only happens to have the power to shape how we work, argue, date, doomscroll, etc. And now, with this second season pick-up, AMC Networks has stood by their conviction with this wholly original satire. As The Audacity‘s creator, I could not be more grateful, but also as a fan of original and slightly dangerous stories, I am ecstatic.”
Created, written and executive produced by Glatzer who has prestige drama pedigree from his work on AMC’s Better Call Saul and HBO’s Succession, The Audacity is set inside the bubble of Silicon Valley and takes on the warped dreams, outsized egos, and ethical lapses of the self-styled inventors of the future. In a world of jaded billionaires, psychiatrist-gurus, bio-hacked tech bros, AI labs and disillusioned teens being optimized in elite private schools, an audacious data-mining CEO (Magnussen) strives to turn insight and influence into profit and power. The darkly comedic drama confronts reality, privacy, and the delusions fueling our ever-changing world.
Magnussen, Goldberg, Galifianakis, Punch, Helberg, Corddry, Meaghan Rath, Paul Adelstein, Everett Blunck, Thailey Roberge, and Ava Marie Telek star in the AMC Studios production, executive produced by Gina Mingacci. Lucy Forbes directed the first two episodes of the first season.
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“Jonathan is one of the smartest, most talented, insightful and human showrunners we’ve ever worked with,” said McDermott, Chief Content Officer of AMC Networks and President of AMC Studios. “He has created a series that is smart, witty and nuanced, with dynamic characters, and something to say about our world, and this particular world that has such a huge impact on our culture, our economy, and the very lives we are all living. Season one is fantastic, season two can’t come soon enough. Thank you to Jonathan, Gina and the incredible cast and crew of The Audacity, for bringing this story and these characters to life.”
The Audacity, which was praised about its realistic Silicon Valley portrayal by former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo at a recent screening in San Francisco, will have its World Premiere at SXSW in Austin on March 14. The two-episode screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Glatzer, Mingacci, Forbes and cast members Magnussen, Punch, Helberg, Corddry, Rath and Adelstein, moderated by journalist Kara Swisher.
Here is a trailer:
English (US) ·