The Artful Dodger‘s stay in Australia will continue for another season.

Disney+ and Hulu have given the hit Australian original a second season, with Thomas Brodie-Sangster returning as the cheeky thieving title character, aka Jack Dawkins, along with series regulars David Thewlis (Fagin) and Maia Mitchell (Lady Belle Fox).

They’ll lead an ensemble cast of Australian and New Zealand cast with “several new faces in exciting cameos.”

Filming will begin in 2025 at Callan Park in Sydney, picking up where the “heart’s desires of Dodger, Fagin and Lady Belle left off, promising more cunning thievery, snappy humor, life-and-death surgeries, and romance with a twist.”

The series is billed as an “an irreverent follow-up to Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’, exploring his adult double life in the far-flung penal colony of Port Victory, Australia.” Brodie-Sangster’s Dawkins has turned his fast, pickpocketing fingers into the skilled hands of a surgeon.

Lady Belle, the Governor’s daughter, is a brilliant and captivating woman who captures Dodger’s heart and is determined to make history as the first female surgeon. In Season 1, Dodger is torn between the promise of an impossible love in high society, and the instinctive temptation of the criminal underworld he secretly craves. His past returns to haunt him with the arrival of Fagin, luring him back for one last heist. 

Disney+ says the series is its strongest-performing Australian original and has also been successful elsewhere internationally, especially in EMEA, though it didn’t provide data.

The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Kylie Watson-Wheeler, said: “We’re thrilled to give our global audiences what they’ve been asking for, with a second season of The Artful Dodger set to start filming in 2025.

“The return of our Australian-born Disney+ Original scripted drama, complete with all-star cast and a brilliant crew, is a testament to the series’ high calibre of production and its local and international audience success. We’re delighted this high-stakes romantic drama of heists, comedy, and beautifully complicated life and love, will thrill and entertain again.” 

Season 2 will be a Disney+/Hulu co-production with Sony Pictures Television’s Curio Pictures. Jo Porter and Rachel Gardner from Curio are executive producer and producers, with McNamara also executive producer and Cameron Welsh series producer.

Series co-creator James McNamara is writing along with Kate Mulvany, Dan Knight and Miranda Tapsell. Ben Young and Gracie Otto are the directors and Jeffrey Walker is consulting. McNamara created the series along with David Maher and David Taylor.

The New South Wales state government is supporting Season 2 through Screen NSW’s Made in NSW Fund.

Disney+’s Australian originals include Last Days of the Space Age, which debuted last month, and Season 2 of Shipwreck Hunters Australia, which is currently filming in Perth.



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