This article speculates about the possibility of Netflix’s Hot Skull season 2 and the show’s renewed or canceled status. It may contain mild spoilers.
Hot Skull is the latest Turkish original series on Netflix. Adapted from the novel by Afsin Kum, the eight-episode series provides a relatively new slant on the post-pandemic dystopia genre, with Istanbul having been ravaged by a bizarre illness transferred through speech. From our review:
Unlike most epidemic media, Hot Skull is set a while after the outbreak, making it feel somewhat reminiscent of The Last of Us in the strict zoning, authoritarian control, and no-nonsense crackdown on any potential infected. It makes a nice change from the usual fare, which is almost always about the panic of the early days as humanity falls apart at the seams. Hot Skull doesn’t paint an especially favorable portrait of how humanity might behave after that initial panic, but that’s the genre for you.
Hot Skull Season 2 Cancelation and Updates
Update on January 1st, 2024
As per What’s on Netflix, there are no plans for a second season of Hot Skull. It appears the cancelation was presumed by a vague tweet on X/Twitter from one of the cast members, Sevket Coruh who played Anton Kadir Tarakci:
2. sezon yok mu yani?
— Osman Köse (@OOsmanKose) February 3, 2023
Was there a falling out behind the scenes, or was the performance of the series not good enough? The reasons are not fully clear. It did perform well in various countries, and the country of origin, Turkey, but it’s possible the statistics were not good enough to sustain on Netflix.
Update on December 3rd, 2022
As is often the case with lesser-known projects, Netflix hasn’t confirmed one way or the other whether we’re going to see a continuation or not. They are likely waiting to see how the first season performs before making a decision in that regard.
While we suspect Hot Skull will be popular, we don’t imagine it’ll be so popular that Netflix will be compelled to renew it. The season tells a relatively complete story and is based on a single novel — to expand beyond that would probably be ill-advised. A lot of the show’s artistic novelty would be lost in a second outing, and since this is a long, handsomely-produced series, the juice probably wouldn’t be worth the squeeze financially speaking.
With all that in mind, we predict that Hot Skull will not be renewed for a second season on Netflix.
