The Haunting of Hill House officially returns with new anthology format for season 2

Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House is officially returning for season 2, but there’s a twist that, believe it or not, doesn’t involve the Red Room.

As with Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story, creator Mike Flanagan and executive producer Trevor Macy are turning this binge obsession into an anthology series format, as per a new multi-year overall television deal with Netflix.

The streaming giant confirmed the return of its 2018 breakout hit on social media Thursday, followed by a press release confirming the official title for the second go. Flanagan always said the story of the Crain family from season 1 is officially “done” in his mind. So season 2, with all new characters, will be titled… The Haunting of Bly Manor.

The Haunting of Hill House was based on the Shirley Jackson book of the same name. Bly Manor, scheduled for a premiere in 2020, marks the setting of the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, a ghost story originally published in 1898 about two orphans looked after by a young governess, who narrates the tale.

There have been multiple efforts to adapt the world of The Turn of the Screw, such as 1961’s The Innocents, 1971’s The Nightcomers, and 2009’s BBC version.

“As far as I’ve ever been concerned with this, the story of the Crain family is told. It’s done,” Flanagan, currently directing the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, told EW in October of his season 1 subjects. “I think that there are all sorts of different directions we could go in, with the house or with something completely different.”

“I love the idea of an anthology as well,” he continued, now seemingly foreshadowing the future of the series. “But to me, I felt like the Crains have been through enough, and we left them exactly as we all wanted to remember them, those of us who worked on it. We toyed with a cliffhanger ending and we toyed with other ideas, but ultimately, in the writers’ room and with the cast and everything else, we really felt like the story demanded a certain kind of closure from us and we were happy to close the book on that family.”

Flanagan and Macy’s deal also see them developing and producing additional series exclusively for Netflix. Through their Intrepid Pictures banner, they’ve already produced features likes Gerald’s Game, Oculus, and Hush.

“Netflix has been an important part of our story, and we’re proud to have worked with them on The Haunting of Hill House, not to mention Gerald’s Game, Hush, and Before I Wake,” the pair said in a statement. “They’ve enabled and supported a great deal of our work and we look forward to much more.”

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• The Haunting of Hill House creator Mike Flanagan on hidden clues, major scares, and a season 2
• The Haunting of Hill House creator talks putting his own stamp on a ghostly classic
• This The Haunting of Hill House detail offers chilling alternate theory about that ending