‘Adolescence’ Director Philip Barantini On Netflix Show’s Future: “There Is No Sequel To This”

Adolescence director Philip Barantini has said “there is no sequel” to the Netflix global smash hit series.

There has been much speculation about Season 2 of the one-shot drama, with the likes of PDede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner from Plan B Entertainment telling Deadline that they had spoken to Barantini about the “next iteration” of the show.

In a talk about the British show’s secret sauce at Content London today, Barantini, who co-created the show with star Stephen Graham, made his first comments about its future. As he described the making of the show and his positive experience on set, he poured cold water on a direct second season.

“For me, it’s about ultimately working with good people, nice people,” he said. “There is no sequel to this, but we as a collective want to continue to work together on multiple things,” he said. “We captured lightning in a bottle in terms of how we shot it, I but also the reach we had. That doesn’t mean every project going forwards can’t have the same ethos.”

Barantini, Thorne and Warp producer Emily Feller appeared on stage to talk about the show. Graham was also billed to attend, but a filming clash meant he didn’t appear.

Barantini’s It’s All Made Up Productions co-produced the Emmy-winning Adolescence with Brad Pitt’s Plan B and UK producer Warp Films, with prolific UK writer Jack Thorne also attached.

Thorne has previously said Season 2 would not happen as the story of troubled teenager Jamie, played by Emmy winner Owen Cooper, was complete, while Graham has made similar noises. However, speculation has remained as to whether it could still return.

Following Adolescence‘s success, Boiling Point director Barantini is increasingly in demand. Last week, we revealed he and Netflix are working together to develop Jade Franks’ one-woman play Eat the Rich (But Maybe Not Me Mates X) into a TV series. The streamer and the director are also pairing up for Hell Jumper, a feature film based on the 2024 documentary of the same name. We were also first with that news.

Adolescence, which made headlines for filming one continuous shot in each of its four episodes, follows the tragic story of a family whose teenage son, played by a debuting Cooper, is arrested and eventually jailed for the murder of a teenage girl. While the creators had assumed it would cut through with the British public, which was in the midst of a debate around incel culture and teen violence, it broke through globally and became one of Netflix’s biggest original shows, surpassing Baby Reindeer as its most viewed UK title.

Thorne, who has written the likes of This is England and Toxic Town, pointed the unexpected global success and posited the question as to whether Adolescence would have sold as territory-by-territory given it is set on a northern town and was addressing a particular debate in the UK.

“If we were on Channel 4, we would have done well [in the UK], but I’d be interested whether we’d have sold abroad,” he said. “Would other countries have wanted to buy this show? My experience is the shows that don’t sell are the one with regional accents, where it’s about something particuarly British. I don’t know if we would have got those international sales.”

Thorne pointed to Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the ITV drama about the post office workers whose lives were destroyed by a faulty computer system, as an example of a critical British hit that did not shop globally. “ITV did very well and it did very in their slate through advertising. ITV Studios couldn’t sell it across enough countries to turn a profit,” he said.

Thorne also questioned the bravery of commissioners, claiming that many writers were failing to get shows made due to an over-reliance on crime programs.”Writers are being trapped in cul-de-sacs,” he said. “One thing Adolescence hasn’t changed at all is that if you want to get a show away, you need a body in it and someone who is a bit sad investigating.

“When I was growing up, there were such a wide variety of shows on TV. I do think crime has taken hold… Writers with amazing leaps of imagination are being boxed into these places.”