Apple TV’s Murderbot Season 2 Gets Major Filming Update After Adding 25 To Cast

Published Aug 23, 2026, 11:37 AM EDT Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025. Sign in to your ScreenRant account After adding 25 new cast members, Murderbot season 2 gets a major filming update. Season 1 of the science-fiction comedy series was released in 2025 and became a hit, as indicated by the 95% score from critics and an 82% score from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Just days ago, Apple TV announced the extensive list of actors joining the Murderbot cast for season 2, including Steve Buscemi, Michael Sheen, Wanda Sykes, Patton Oswalt, Topher Grace, Brendant Hunt, Tramell Tillman, Nicholas Braun, Meredith Salenger, and Katy O'Brian. Now Playing · Sound On How Well Do You Know Apple TV+? “Believe.” 🍪TedLassoBiscuits with the boss 🧠SeverancePraise Kier 🐎SlowHorsesSlough House ☕MorningShowLive from NYC 🚀For AllMankindWhat if...? PRESS PLAY → 01 Apple TV+’s breakout comedy about a relentlessly optimistic American football coach hired to manage an English Premier League team won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Who plays Ted? AJason Sudeikis BJon Hamm CWill Ferrell DBrendan Hunt ✓ Correct! Jason Sudeikis — the former SNL cast member who originally played Ted in 2013 NBC Sports Premier League promos. He co-created the series with Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard), Bill Lawrence, and Joe Kelly. Sudeikis won back-to-back Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy. A Season 4 is officially in production for 2026. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jason Sudeikis. Jon Hamm is Mad Men (and later showed up as himself in Ted Lasso Season 2). Will Ferrell hasn’t done an Apple TV+ show. Brendan Hunt plays Coach Beard — Ted’s silent assistant — and was a co-creator, but Sudeikis is the title character and won two Best Actor Emmys for the role. NEXT → 02 Ben Stiller-directed sci-fi thriller Severance became a cultural phenomenon with its eerie Macrodata Refinement floors and “praise Kier” cultishness. What is the name of the sinister biotech corporation at its centre? AApex Corporation BLumon Industries CWeyland-Yutani DUmbrella Corp ✓ Correct! Lumon Industries — the unsettling corporation founded by the cult-like Eagan family, whose “severance procedure” surgically splits an employee’s work memories from their outside life. Weyland-Yutani is from Alien; Umbrella Corp is Resident Evil; Apex is fictional but not this show. Lumon’s retro-futuristic aesthetic (beige Macbook-era CRTs and long hallways) has become instantly iconic. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Lumon Industries. Weyland-Yutani is the Alien franchise’s evil megacorp. Umbrella Corp runs Resident Evil. Apex isn’t a recognisable fictional company. Lumon is the creepy biotech behind Severance — with its Kier Eagan cult of personality, waffle parties, and surgically separated “innies” and “outies.” NEXT → 03 In March 2022, Apple TV+ made streaming history when one of its films became the first from any streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Which film was it? AThe Morning Show BGreyhound CCODA DKillers of the Flower Moon ✓ Correct! CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) — Sian Heder’s drama about a hearing daughter of a deaf family in Massachusetts — won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards, beating The Power of the Dog (the heavy favourite). Troy Kotsur’s supporting-actor win was the first for a deaf male actor. The Morning Show is a TV series, Greyhound is Apple’s Tom Hanks WWII film, Killers is an Apple film but was released later. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is CODA. The Morning Show is a series. Greyhound is Apple’s 2020 Tom Hanks WWII film (a solid hit but not an Oscar winner). Killers of the Flower Moon — Scorsese’s 2023 Apple release — was nominated for 10 Oscars but won none. CODA’s 2022 Best Picture win made Apple the first streamer to break through in the category. NEXT → 04 The scruffy, flatulent, ruthlessly cynical MI5 exile Jackson Lamb — running the Slough House dumping ground for disgraced spies — is one of modern TV’s most acclaimed performances. Which veteran actor plays him? AAnthony Hopkins BColin Firth CGary Oldman DJim Broadbent ✓ Correct! Gary Oldman — Oscar winner for Darkest Hour — plays Jackson Lamb opposite Kristin Scott Thomas’ glacial Diana Taverner. The series adapts Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and has become Apple’s most quietly successful long-running drama, renewed through at least Season 6. Oldman has repeatedly called Lamb his favourite role of his career. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Gary Oldman. Anthony Hopkins hasn’t done an Apple TV+ series of this prominence. Colin Firth was reportedly in contention for different spy roles (including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s George Smiley, which Oldman also played). Jim Broadbent appears elsewhere. Oldman’s Lamb is one of TV’s most delightfully unpleasant protagonists. NEXT → 05 Apple TV+’s flagship prestige drama on launch day — a #MeToo-era newsroom saga about the on-air partners of a fictional morning TV show — was anchored by two huge Hollywood names as its co-leads and producers. Who are they? ANicole Kidman & Meryl Streep BReese Witherspoon & Laura Dern CJennifer Aniston & Nicole Kidman DJennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon ✓ Correct! Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon — both also executive producers — anchor the show as Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson. Reportedly each earned a then-record $1.1 million per episode. Steve Carell co-stars as the disgraced anchor whose firing kicks off the entire series. Aniston earned her first Emmy nomination for dramatic work for the role in 2020. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon & Dern did Big Little Lies (on HBO). Kidman was also in Big Little Lies. Meryl Streep joined The Morning Show in later seasons (a supporting role). Aniston and Witherspoon lead and produce — both reportedly making $1.1M per episode in one of streaming’s richest-ever deals. NEXT → 06 Ronald D. Moore’s alt-history space epic For All Mankind — one of Apple TV+’s original launch titles — jumps forward in time each season. What is the show’s central point of divergence from real history? AThe Soviets land on the Moon first BAliens contact Earth in 1969 CMars is colonised in 1970 DNASA is privatised in the 1960s ✓ Correct! The Soviets beat Apollo 11 to the Moon in June 1969 — keeping the Space Race alive and turning NASA into a permanently ascendant institution. That single change cascades across decades: women astronauts are pushed early, lunar bases are built in the 1970s, Mars is reached in the 1990s, and so on. Each season time-jumps ahead a decade, showing how this different history snowballs. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is the Soviets landing on the Moon first — June 1969, beating Apollo 11. That single change drives everything: continued funding, expanded NASA, women astronauts, a permanent lunar base by the 1980s, Mars missions in the 1990s. Aliens aren’t in the show. Mars gets colonised, but much later. NASA remains public throughout the series. NEXT → 07 Apple TV+ launched with a small lineup of nine originals — including The Morning Show, See, Dickinson, and For All Mankind — at the aggressively low price of $4.99 a month. When did the service officially go live? AJanuary 2017 BNovember 2019 CMarch 2020 DSeptember 2021 ✓ Correct! Apple TV+ launched on November 1, 2019 — just before Disney+ beat it to market by 11 days. Apple went in with a tiny roster of about nine originals (versus Disney+’s massive back catalogue) but compensated with $1 billion in original content spend and a one-year free trial for Apple hardware buyers. Its quality-over-quantity bet has since paid off in awards and prestige. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is November 2019 — specifically November 1st, just 11 days before Disney+ launched (a deliberate piece of scheduling brinkmanship). Apple launched with only nine originals and priced at $4.99/month to try to get ahead of Netflix and Disney. The service went live just before the pandemic turbocharged streaming growth everywhere. NEXT → 08 Apple TV+’s post-apocalyptic thriller Silo — starring Rebecca Ferguson in a 10,000-person underground society — adapts a bestselling series of novels originally self-published as a 2011 short story. Who wrote them? AAndy Weir BBlake Crouch CTed Chiang DHugh Howey ✓ Correct! Hugh Howey self-published Wool as a short story on Amazon in 2011; word-of-mouth turned it into a trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) and eventually a publishing phenomenon. Apple’s adaptation, retitled Silo, premiered in 2023. Andy Weir wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch wrote Dark Matter and Recursion. Ted Chiang wrote the novella that became Arrival. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Hugh Howey. Andy Weir is The Martian/Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch is Dark Matter/Recursion (also recently adapted to Apple TV+, hence the mix-up). Ted Chiang is Arrival’s source. Howey’s Wool trilogy — Silo’s source — started as a self-published Amazon short story in 2011 before exploding into a bestseller. REVEAL MY SCORE → End Credits · Autoplay Paused Your Apple TV+ Rank 🍏 / 8 Cupertino completionist — or still on the free trial? ⤴ PLAY AGAIN Apple TV has now also announced that Murderbot season 2 is officially in production. The announcement was made via a video that zooms in on the titular character's helmet, which is eventually picked up by a pair of hands, and a caption that says, "Coming soon to an entertainment feed near you." Check out the announcement below: An official release date has not been set yet, although a premiere in the second half of 2027 seems most likely with filming just kicking off now. A 2027 release would mean that there has been a two-year hiatus between seasons, as the series first debuted on May 16, 2025. This follows the trajectory of other Apple TV science-fiction series, such as Severance and Pluribus, which have been very well-received but taken more than a year to return. Based on The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, the show follows the eponymous self-aware cyborg (Alexander Skarsgård) designed for private security who has secretly hacked his own system. He is an enthusiastic fan of space operas, with his favorite being The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, and an in-universe version of this series plays out at times within the Apple TV show. In addition to Skarsgård, the series regulars who played the group Murderbot was assigned to protect are returning for season 2. This includes Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tattiawna Jones, and Tamara Podemski. The recurring guest stars who portray The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon are also back, featuring Clark Gregg, John Cho, DeWanda Wise, and Jack McBrayer. See the full list of their new co-stars below: Blair Underwood Brendan Hunt Bridget Everett Britne Oldford Damian Young Divian Ladwa Ella Jay Basco Etienne Beydon Griffin Newman Jaedynn Latter Jason George Kali Reis Katy O'Brian Maddy Strauss Marc Menchaca Martha Plimpton Meredith Salenger Michael Sheen Nia Otchere-Sarfo Nicholas Braun Patton Oswalt Steve Buscemi Topher Grace Tramell Tillman Wanda Sykes Some of these stars already have strong ties to Apple TV, from Hunt co-creating and starring in Ted Lasso to Tillman playing Mr. Seth Milchick in Severance. Plot and character details remain under wraps, so it is unknown as of this writing who Hunt, Tillman, and the other newcomers are playing, although potential hints may be found in The Murderbot Diaries. Season 1 adapted All Systems Red, but it has not been officially confirmed which installments season 2's story will be based on. If Murderbot season 2 does end up releasing in 2027, it will join another highly-anticipated year for Apple TV's science-fiction offerings. Silo season 4, which will conclude the hit series based on Hugh Howey's novels, is confirmed to be debuting in 2027. With both Severance season 3 and Foundation season 4 filming this year, both of them may join the streamer's schedule next year as well. All episodes of Murderbot season 1 are streaming on Apple TV. Release Date May 15, 2025 Network Apple TV+ Showrunner Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz Murderbot follows a self-aware security android grappling with its unexpected emotions while covertly executing a perilous mission. Amidst the chaos, its overarching desire remains indulging in futuristic soap operas, all while seeking understanding of its own identity within the human world.