Brad Pitt's Plan B Eyes Season 2 of ADOLESCENCE Following Netflix Breakout

After igniting a global conversation and racking up over 114 million views since its March 13 premiere, Adolescence has solidified its place as one of Netflix’s most powerful recent releases. Now, there may be more on the horizon, even though, we’ve heard their wouldn’t be.

Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment is officially in early talks with director Philip Barantini to develop what could become Season 2 of the British drama. Speaking with Deadline, Plan B co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner offered a glimpse at what’s being discussed—though they’re keeping specifics close to the chest for now.

Gardner explained the approach moving forward: “We’re trying to figure out how to widen the aperture, stay true to its DNA [and] not be repetitive.”

While nothing is confirmed, the hope is to reunite the original creative team, including co-creator Stephen Graham and writer Jack Thorne, whose scripts helped launch Adolescence into the cultural stratosphere. The series was co-produced with Warp Films and Matriarch Productions.

I was completely captivated by the series, which centered on a 13-year-old boy caught in the grip of the online manosphere and accused of a violent crime. The show is currently Netflix’s fourth most-watched English-language series of all time—and it's sparked real-world dialogue, including comments from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who admitted the series “hit home hard” in his own household.

Plan B sees the show's resonance as proof that raw, localized storytelling still carries global weight. “It was a seemingly small, localized, emotional story,” said Gardner, “and to feel that it unlocked something so much larger was humbling.”

Much of Adolescence's power comes from Barantini’s intense one-take direction, a style he first showcased in his film Boiling Point. According to Gardner, the technique was never meant as a stylistic gimmick. It served the story.

“Phil’s style of doing the episodes in one take is not a gimmick. It’s very much in conversation with the subject matter,” she said. “In early conversations with Stephen and Jack, they were talking about how it’s too easy to look away.

“You can look away from the school, you can look away from the police station, you can look away from the counseling, you can look away from the family. In that kind of prismatic way of viewing, you can duck the issue. So our theory was, what would happen if you couldn’t look away? And will that make the subject embed in you in a different way? That was a thrilling thing.”

That vision was sparked in part by Pitt himself, who sat in on pitch meetings and offered feedback on Thorne’s pilot script. “Brad is a massive fan of Stephen’s,” Kleiner noted, adding that Pitt was “blown away” by the pilot and helped energize the project in its early stages.

Originally pitched to Amazon, Adolescence ended up on Netflix after Amazon passed, something Kleiner diplomatically acknowledged: “I want to be grateful to them for their good faith in helping us get underway.”

Netflix UK head Anne Mensah jumped at the chance to bring the series in, having previously worked with Plan B on The Third Day. The show even caught the attention of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who told Plan B he was “personally moved by the show” and gave it a rare public endorsement on Instagram when it dropped.

Gardner said she knew the show had struck a chord when her daughter showed her a TikTok trend of moms emotionally reacting to it. The online buzz, political discussion, and emotional weight of the show have all helped push it into the pop culture spotlight.

As for how Adolescence fits into Plan B’s broader mission? Gardner said a recurring theme is “complicity,” while Kleiner pointed to the studio’s “level of ambition” in choosing storytelling methods that challenge form and audience expectation.

“Look at the incredible power of UK television,” Kleiner added. “There’s a way things are made [there] that you know, we want to do more of, for sure. Not just in the UK but across Europe.”

It will be interesting to see how this pans out.