Amazon Doubles Down On Horror, Renews ‘Lore’ With ‘Exorcist’s’ Sean Crouch As New Showrunner

By Dominic Patten, Deadline
Published Feb. 26, 2018, 1:07 p.m. ET

Things are about to get downright scary at Amazon, again. The streaming service now run by Jennifer Salke is bring back horror anthology Lore for a second season, it was formally announced this morning.

No specifics were provided on when Season 2 of Lore would debut or how many episodes it’ll be but I hear that a fall 2018 premiere is looking likely with about six episodes, like Season 1 had.

News of the pick-up for more of the Valhalla Entertainment and Propagate Content produced series based on Aaron Mahnke’s widely popular 2015 launched podcast also comes with some changes behind the camera. While the fate of often ratings struggling but acclaimed The Exorcist TV show is still unclear on Fox or elsewhere, Season 2 showrunner Sean Crouch has now stepped in at Lore to replace Glen Morgan.

“With Sean Crouch at the helm, Lore is set to be scarier than ever,” said Propagate’s Ben Silverman and Howard Owens on Monday. “In Season 2, we will explore global, real-life horror stories that make this series unlike anything else on television,” the executive producers added. “We are thrilled to be back on Prime Video.”

Also apparently thrilled is fellow EP Gale Anne Hurd, who knows a thing or two about the genre from The Walking Dead and many more offerings. “As a fan of documentaries and horror, Lore resonates with me on so many levels,” said the Valhalla boss today. “Season 2 is shaping up to be scarier and even more compelling and unnerving than our first one!”

Falling under Amazon Originals unscripted division, Lore pulled from co-EP Mahnke’s podcast of the same name in it October 13, 2017, a Friday, Season 1 in a mix of reenactments animation, narration, and historical documents and footage to shine a light on the true story of the modern vampire legend and more. News of a Lore TV series initially emerged in April 2016 and Deadline exclusively revealed in October of that year at New York Comic-Con that Amazon was onboard.

In my TV review of the first season of Lore last year, I called the Colm Feore and Campbell Scott starrer “something you can really bite into” and “something that is quite yummy.”

With Crouch now on deck, production on Season 2 is scheduled to start in April with new cast and whole new stories, some from the podcast and some not. Brett-Patrick Jenkins, Jon Halperin and Mark Mannucci also serve as EPs on Lore. Still manning the podcast too, a busy Mahnke also has two more books in his The World of Lore series set to come out this year following last fall’s Monstrous Creatures publication – a packed schedule he teased online yesterday along with today’s Season 2 announcement:

Stream Lore on Prime Video