Foundation has been renewed for a second season on Apple TV Plus, Apple announced today, ahead of the release of the fourth episode of the first season on Friday.

The renewal is a vote of confidence from Apple, as one of the flagship shows on Apple TV Plus, meant to help bring in viewers as a prestige genre show in the same way that Game of Thrones does for HBO, The Mandalorian does for Disney Plus, or The Witcher for Netflix. That said, outside of today’s press release (where Apple calls the show “a global hit” that “quickly proved to resonate with audiences”), the company hasn’t even provided vague estimates of how popular the show has been so far.

“With season two, our audience will get to visit more of Asimov’s indelible characters and worlds, including Hober Mallow, General Bel Riose, and all the Outer Suns,” showrunner and executive producer David S. Goyer said in Apple’s press release, indicating that the second season will at least in part cover the latter half of Asimov’s Foundation, as well as its sequel, Foundation and Empire.

Goyer has big ambitions for the series, too; in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he mentioned that his original pitch to Apple was eight seasons long. And while Apple hasn’t publicly commented on how much the lavish series costs, Goyer mentioned that “if you were to take two episodes and put them together, the budget is bigger than some of the movies I’ve done.”

Apple’s announcement doesn’t say which (if any) of its season one cast members will be returning for Foundation’s second season. But given the anthology nature of Asimov’s novels — which are a collection of short stories that span centuries of time — it’s likely that a second season would bring new faces to the show.

Whether Apple is willing to pony up for the full 80 episodes that Goyer envisions to properly tell his story is still an unanswered question, but with a second season on the way, it seems that Foundation fans will at least get to see the entirety of Asimov’s first book adapted in live-action.

The remainder of Foundation’s first season airs weekly on Fridays on Apple TV Plus; no release date for Foundation’s second season has been announced.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/7/22715363/foundation-renewed-second-season-apple-tv-plus