Bad news for fans of Steven Soderbergh‘s short-lived Cinemax series “The Knick“: at a press conference for the 2024 release calendars for HBO and Max today, HBO head Casey Bloys confirmed that Barry Jenkins‘ sequel season to the show likely won’t to happen. Rolling Stone’s chief TV critic Alan Sepinwall has the scoop, with Bloys saying that the scripts weren’t up to his team’s standards. So that means “The Knick” may definitively be over, six years after the show as originally cancelled.
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“The Knick” starred Clive Owen and André Holland as two ambitious surgeons at The Knickerbocker Hospital in turn-of-the-century New York City. As the two butt heads, they also deal with their personal problems, namely addiction and racism, as well as the difficulty of being maverick doctors in an institution that limits their medical aspirations. Both critics and audiences loved Soderbergh’s series, the director’s first project after “retiring” from Hollywood. But after two seasons, Cinemax cancelled the show in 2017 to focus on more action-oriented dramas.
However, a resurrection of sorts for the series occurred in September 2020, when Soderbergh confirmed that Holland had teamed up with filmmaker Barry Jenkins for a sequel season. “Yeah. [André] and Barry took that on,” Soderbergh confirmed, suggesting at the time he would stay on in an executive producer role. “I told them, ’Look, I had, I had my shot. Godspeed, take it in whatever direction you want,'” he continued. Soderbergh also confirmed in 2020 that Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, the original showrunners and writers for “The Knick,” had already written the pilot for the new season. “[André and Barry] came up with a really great approach with Jack and Michael,” he explained. “And that seems to be advancing rapidly. I just read the pilot, which is terrific.”
Jenkins never revealed the plans he and Holland cooked up for “The Knick,” but Soderbergh talked about his original idea for Season 3 and beyond in February 2021. “Our six-year plan was Seasons One and Two as you saw it,” he explained. “Seasons Three and Four were going to skip forward 50 years. It was going to be right after World War II, brand-new characters, brand-new cast. And Seasons Five and Six were going to be set five minutes into the future, with a mix of actors from the previous four seasons. I was really excited to do all of that.”
Jenkins then spoke about his take on the series in a June 2021 interview with the LA Times. “Yeah, we’re still working on it. And look, I’m a ‘Knick’ fanboy first and foremost,” Jenkins said. “I wish that Steven would have gone through with the Season 3 plans, and then when it became clear that he wasn’t, I felt like well, I love this thing, and I really want it to exist, what can I do to help it exist? So, we’ve just been chasing it,” he continued. “But it’s such a special show that it’s going to take a lot of work to get that thing to be what it is, because, as a fanboy first and foremost, if Season 3 can’t live up to the heights, set up by Season 1 and 2, what’s the point of making it, you know?”
After that, however, there was no news about “The Knick” S3 until today, when Bloys confirmed it probably won’t happen. And that’s too bad, considering the cult following the show had in its heyday. But that shouldn’t surprise fans of Jenkins. He’s been hard at work on “Mufasa: The Lion King” since his 2021 TV series “The Underground Railroad.” And Holland has moved onto other projects since then, too, like “Bones And All” and the upcoming films “The Actor” and “The Dutchman.”
Still, fans of “The Knick” were holding out hope the singular medical drama would return. But if Bloys comments are any indication, it won’t happen.