Ellen Barkin as Smurf and Finn Cole as J in TNT's Animal Kingdom.
The American remake of Animal Kingdom on TNT has found better luck than some other American adaptations of Aussie shows (see: Rake, Kath and Kim) with a second season given the go-ahead less than a month after the show's premiere.
TNT executive VP for original programming Sarah Aubrey said that Animal Kingdom had "signaled the new tone for TNT dramas and is moving the network in the direction we hoped it would."
"I'm confident that our strategy of working with high-caliber talent and then getting out of their way will continue to pay off."
Animal Kingdom premiered June 14 and is currently reaching an average 6.7 million viewers and growing from its launch, according to THR.
The original film's director David Michôd and producer Liz Watts are both credited as executive producers on the series.
Reviews for the American take have been middling, with Variety labelling it "fairly predictable and even conventional", with the feel of "a relic from cable TV's semi-recent past". THR's Tim Goodman said the show "will have to get better fast".
Lead character 'J' is played in this version by Finn Cole, best known for Peaky Blinders.
James Frecheville, who played J in the 2010 feature, has had perhaps the least ballyhooed rise of all the actors to break out in that film, though his credits since heading Stateside are nothing to be sniffed at, with roles in The Drop, New Girl, Transparent and The Stanford Prison Experiment.