Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, the creators of the Showtime drama series Yellowjackets, have officially signed an overall deal with Showtime, in which the pair has agreed to continue as showrunners for future seasons of the show as well as create new projects exclusively for Showtime. News of the new agreement comes just before Yellowjackets season 2 is due to begin filming in Vancouver.
Yellowjackets, which was created by married couple Lyle and Nickerson and first premiered in November 2021, follows a 1996 girls’ high school soccer team, called the Yellowjackets, as their plane crashes and forces them to survive in the remote wilderness, devolving into “savage clans,” per Showtime. Twenty-five years later, the series shows former team members – including Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Natalie (Juliette Lewis), Misty (Christina Ricci), and Taissa (Tawny Cypress), among others – struggling to put the events of the plane crash and the “dark secrets” surrounding their survival behind them as they have pulled together again two and a half decades after the crash.
In an interview with Forbes magazine, Lyle and Nickerson explained that Yellowjackets borrows inspiration from the 1993 movie Alive, which documents the events of the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster, as well as the 2009 film The Donner Party, but that the series is also meant to show “the ferocious depths of female friendships” and serve as “an exploration of the best and worst that human beings are capable of.”
Behind the ‘Yellowjackets’ Creators’ New Deal with Showtime
Aside from co-creating Yellowjackets for Showtime, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson also boast a history as creators for the Netflix series Narcos (2015), its spinoff Narcos: Mexico (2018), Dispatches From Elsewhere (2020) on AMC, and The Originals (2013) for the CW. In accordance with their new agreement with Showtime, Lyle and Nickerson will continue to serve as writers and showrunners for Yellowjackets alongside Johnathan Lisco (Animal Kingdom) but, according to Collider, will also oversee and produce new projects exclusively for Showtime.
Regarding the new agreement, Showtime President of Entertainment Gary Levine told The Hollywood Reporter, “Ashley and Bart are not only great writers, but they are also wildly original thinkers and creators…I’m not sure I would want to go camping with them, but I sure as hell love working with them, and I’m thrilled they will be working at Showtime for years to come.”
In addition, Lyle and Nickerson released a joint statement concerning the new deal:
Yellowjackets season two, starring Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress, Elijah Wood, Simone Kessell, and Lauren Ambrose, will begin production in Vancouver next week. Season one of the show is currently available for streaming on Showtime, Hulu, and Pluto TV.
