HBO has begun production of the second season of its television adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi saga Dune, and it’s making some changes from its freshman season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Chief among those changes will be the inclusion of eight episodes in Dune: Prophecy‘s new season, a bump from the first season’s six-episode run, per The Hollywood Reporter. This comes as a surprise given the general trend in the streaming era to give renewed shows the same amount of episodes or fewer per season, especially for those that have been met with mixed reviews from critics and viewers.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Prophecy is also bringing on a slate of new cast members, the most prominent being Indira Varma, a veteran of Game of Thrones who would be well-suited to the realm of the Bene Gesserit, the secretive organization that controls Dune‘s politics from behind the scenes. Additional credits for Varma include HBO’s Rome and Netflix’s The Night Manager.

The show is also recruiting Adolescence breakout and Emmy-winner Ashley Walters, who played the lead detective in Netflix’s remarkable one-take psychological crime drama, as well as Tom Hollander of HBO’s The White Lotus and the BBC’s Us, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Co-produced by HBO and Legendary Television, Prophecy is filmed in Hungary, Jordan, and Spain, and will see season one showrunner and executive producer Alison Schapker (Westworld, Lost) return, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A rough premiere date has not yet been announced, but given the production’s restart late in the year, it’s unlikely the series will return by the end of 2026, with a release sometime in 2027 being more likely.

From Frank Herbert’s expansive series of novels and set 10,000 years before Paul Atreides’ rise to power, Prophecy follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled order that will become known as the Bene Gesserit, according to an official synopsis provided by The Hollywood Reporter.

Returning to the show are actors Emily Watson (The Legend of Ochi, Chernobyl), Olivia Williams (The Rings of Power, The Ghost Writer), Travis Fimmel (Black Snow, Warcraft), Jodhi May (Renegade Nell, A World Apart), and Sarah-Sofie Boussnina (The Colony, Knightfall). Executive producing the series along with Schapker are Diane Ademu-John (Empire, The Originals), Jon Spaihts (Dune: Part Two, Prometheus), Scott Z. Burns (The Report, Contagion), Matthew King (Someone Lives Here, True Dating Stories), and John Cameron (The Pitt, Severance).