The second season of HBO’s hit drama, Perry Mason, will be guided by two new showrunners. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the writing duo of Michael Begler (Raising Helen, The Knick) and Jack Amiel (The Prince & Me, Big Miracle) will helm the next entry of the series starring Matthew Rhys (The Americans, A Good Day in the Neighborhood). They join the period show as part of their new three year overall deal with WarnerMedia.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, show co-creators Ron Fitzgerald (Friday Night Lights, Weeds) and Rolin Jones (United States of Tara, Boardwalk Empire) exited the series to pursue other projects. The show bolstered a record premiere for the cable network drawing the best debut for a new series in the last two years. It eventually amassed eight million viewers by its season finale.
Based on the original CBS series, Perry Mason stars Rhys as the iconic lawyer decades before he marveled in the courtroom as a defense attorney. Instead, viewers follow Mason throughout the seedy crime world of 1930s Los Angeles where he is finding scarce work as a private investigator. Season one highlighted a case of a murdered infant with its mother accused of the horrid crime. The suspicions revolved around a powerful church, a corrupt police officer, and a prosecutor seeking re-election.
Rhys co-stars included Juliet Rylance (McMafia, Sinister) as Della Street; John Lithgow (Bombshell, The Crown) as Mason’s mentor, E.B. Jonathan; and, Chris Chalk (Gotham, Godzilla vs. Kong) as Officer Paul Drake. Season one also featured guest stars Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk, Heartland), Lili Taylor (American Crime, Eli), and Gayle Rankin (The Climb, Her Smell). HBO renewed the series in July of last year.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, actor Raymond Burr (Ironside, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) initiated the role of Mason back in 1957, where the series ran for nine seasons. Burr would later reprise the role in a series of TV movies for NBC in the mid-1980s and 90s. The character originated from a number of novels written by Erie Stanley Gardner (The Case of the Velvet Claws, The Case of the Sulky Girl) in the 1930s.