Adam Scott Returning for ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2

Adam Scott will reportedly reprise his role as Ed Mackenzie in Big Little Lies season 2 when the show returns to HBO, according to a report by Variety.

The show was a huge success when it premiered on the premium streaming network early in 2017. Many attributed its break-out status to the stacked cast list. Scott, who is beloved for his roles on Parks and Rec, The Good Place and many others, was still one of the least famous people on the show.

Big Little Lies stars Reese Witherspoon as Scott’s onscreen wife, as well as Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz and Shailene Woodley. To add to the star power, Meryl Streep will reportedly join the show for the second season as Witherspoon’s mother.

Big Little Lies is based on a novel, though first season of the TV show saw the book’s plot all the way to the end. In the second season, the showrunners will break new ground, extending the story past where it ended on the page.

This isn’t the first time HBO has done this. The Leftovers was also based on a novel, though season 1 told the whole story of the book. Yet HBO kept the show running for a total of three seasons, telling a whole new version of the story it was based on.

The same is already true for Big Little Lies. Fans of the novel noted that the show made some big changes, and fans weren’t happy about all of them. Still, the vast majority of the audience wasn’t familiar with the source material, and so weren’t bothered by it.

HBO has made a fortune by re-appropriating stories that began in prose, most notably through the Game of Thrones series. The show is based on a series of fantasy novels called A Song of Ice and Fire. As the show has climbed to monolithic status as a cultural touchstone and one of the most sensational TV programs of all time, fans of the novels have revelled in the chance to explain the plot points the show couldn’t get to, or the subtle variations.

Movies and TV have relied on printed stories for inspiration a lot lately, and it doesn’t end with HBO or in-house content producers. Next month will see the release of Ready Player One, the latest sci-fi action film from iconic director Steven Spielberg. The movie is one of the most expensive examples of a prose adaptation, and is expected to be one of the biggest films of 2018.