(L-R) Greg McLean, Phoebe Tonkin, Bryan Brown, Glen Dolman.
During filming of Stan’s Bloom in Victoria last year the creator/showrunner Glen Dolman was already hatching ideas for a second series of the supernatural drama.
So when Stan’s Mike Sneesby and Nick Forward ordered another six episodes in April after he pitched an overview Dolman pressed ahead with plans to bring a fresh perspective to the show.
That involved hiring new directors in Greg McLean and Sian Davies (who collaborated on Stan’s The Gloaming), assembling a new team of writers and adding half a dozen fresh faces to the cast, with the assistance of casting director Leigh Pickford.
Joining him in the writers’ room are Giula Sandler, Matt Ford, Tommy Murphy and Catherine S McMullen. Dolman scripted four of the six eps of the first series, which was named Drama Series Production of the Year at last week’s Screen Producers Australia awards, and Matt Cameron and Alison Nisselle each did one.
The sequel picks up three months later when the side-effects of eating the “fountain of youth” berries are more severe and miracle-seekers start arriving in the town, triggering a clash between science, nature and faith.
“We wanted to open up the world to new perspectives as the first series focused on the insular world of the town consumed with grief after the devastating flood,” he tells IF. “There is a lot of new characters and fresh energy in the show.
“It has a lot of heart and humour and is still very much a wishful story about what you might do if you had your youth again.”
The newcomers include Jacqueline McKenzie as a driven, ambitious and successful woman who runs a bio-tech company. Gary Sweet is a retired cop who is the father of Genevieve Morris’ Rhonda.
Bella Heathcote is a younger version of another character. Toby Schmitz is the town’s new priest who is battling his own demons. Ed Oxenbould plays a relative of McKenzie’s character with Lucy Barrett as the grand-daughter of Anne Charleston’s Loris and Scott Lee as her boyfriend.
Jacki Weaver, Bryan Brown, Phoebe Tonkin, John Stanton, Terry Norris and Thomas Ersatz all return, along with producer See Seeary, DOP Geoffrey Hall, production designer Carrie Kennedy and costume designer Zed Dragojlovich.
Sony Pictures Television sold Bloom to a raft of territories including Hulu in the US and My5, the UK’s Channel 5’s VOD service.
Brenton Thwaites and Lily Sullivan in ‘I Met a Girl’ (Photo: David Dare Parker).
When production wraps Dolman will return to LA to work on a yet-to-be determined series for Warner Bros. Television after signing a blind script deal with the studio earlier this year.
WB execs pounced after being impressed with Bloom and another sci-fi project he’s written which is yet to proceed.
He also looks forward to the release of I Met a Girl, an uplifting romantic comedy-drama he scripted, produced by his brother Adam and Melissa Kelly, directed by Luke Eve.
Co-funded by Screen Australia, Screenwest, Create NSW and Soundfirm, the plot follows Brenton Thwaites as Devon, an aspiring musician with schizophrenia who is in love with the mysterious Lucy (Lily Sullivan). When she vanishes, he takes off across the country to find her, forcing his brother to try to rescue him.
Tait Brady’s Label Distribution has the Australian rights and Alliance Media Partners is handling international sales.