'Bodyguard' Creator Jed Mercurio in Talks With BBC for Second Season

"We're in talks. We're going through the logistics," Mercurio told the Banff World Media Festival about discussions with the BBC.

After the first-season finale of Bodyguard became a small-screen phenomenon, series creator Jed Mercurio on Monday said he's in talks with the BBC about a second season.

"We're in talks. We're going through the logistics of it. There's no real update now," Mercurio told a keynote session at the Banff World Media Festival.

He also confirmed the BBC has not yet officially greenlit a second season.

Mercurio's appearance at the fest in the Canadian Rockies follows Bodyguard — on which Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) plays an embattled protector caught up in a devious assassination plot — grabbing a peak audience of 11 million viewers, or a 47.9 percent share for the finale on BBC One.

The police drama was then picked up by Netflix, while Line of Duty, another of Mercurio's dramas, streams stateside on Acorn TV.

Mercurio said he was surprised that the first season of Bodyguard became among the BBC's biggest TV shows of 2018. "I know there's an adage that your failure should be surprising. But the level of success was surprising," he said.

And the British showrunner of popular thrillers said he's open to working in Hollywood. Mercurio has written a few U.S. pilots, but none received a series order.

"Now, with Line of Duty, it's not ending, but I'm beginning to look at the future," he told Banff delegates. Mercurio said much depended on how his ideas for fresh series are received by U.S. studios or streamers.

Asked how, given his success with Bodyguard and Line of Duty, Mercurio might respond if he was told he could make any of his ideas into a TV show, the British showrunner said: "If anybody, if the North Koreans said any idea, I'm going to think about it."

Mercurio's other TV credits include Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Critical, Strike Back, Bodies, The Grimleys and Cardiac Arrest.

The Banff World Media Festival continues through Wednesday.