The first season of the show, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, was met with critical acclaim but the second, with Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn in the leading roles, garnered poor reviews.
It was assumed that such negativity meant the end of True Detective. However, reports from the HBO’s Television Critics Association press day indicate otherwise.
At the event, Casey Bloys, who recently replaced Michael Lombardo as president of programming for the network, stated that a third season of True Detective is still very much a possibility.
He stated: “It is not dead, but there’s no take on a third season yet.”
He added that he was open to another writer coming on board for the third season, with creator/showrunner Nic Pizzolatto (who signed a major development deal with the channel last year) supervising the series. Such a move would make sense given a lot of the backlash season 2 received was on the basis of Pizzolatto’s writing.
The move also may be inspired by the confirmation that Game of Thrones will soon reach its grand finale, thus HBO needs something to lean on before new content is generated. After all, Bloys also referred to the season as ‘a very valuable franchise for [HBO]’, and if it can get back some of that season one lustre, then who knows…