Shudder renews The Last Drive-In for Season 2
David Farnor | On 24, May 2019
Shudder has renewed its hit original series The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs for a second season.
AMC Networks’ subscription service for horrors, thrillers and everything in between has been increasingly investing in its own original films and series. It first teamed up with Joe Bob Briggs in July 2018, for the 24-hour The Last Drive-In marathon, intended to be Briggs’ final farewell to televised movie hosting. Due to overwhelming popular demand, Shudder brought Briggs back for two specials later in the year, Thanksgiving’s Dinners of Death and December’s A Very Joe Bob Christmas. A full Last Drive-In series premiered in March 2019.
In each episode, Briggs, the world’s foremost drive-in movie critic, presents an eclectic horror movie double feature, interrupting the films to expound upon their merits, histories and significance to genre cinema. Proving that an SVOD service can create appointment television, every episode of The Last Drive-In premieres on Shudder’s live feed before being made available on demand. The show’s hashtag, #TheLastDriveIn, has trended on Twitter during each of its first eight episodes as fans experience the show together in real time.
To date, the show has featured films spanning five decades, encompassing everything from classics to obscurities and foreign cult offerings. From time to time, filmmakers and other guests have visited Briggs’ Texas trailer park to join the conversation, including horror icon and Castle Freak star Barbara Crampton and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’s boundary-breaking director, John McNaughton. The series is produced by Matt Manjourides and Justin Martell and directed by Austin Jennings.
“From our first marathon and subsequent specials in 2018, through this year’s series, Shudder members have been loud and clear: we can never have too much Joe Bob,” says Shudder General Manager Craig Engler. “We have read every tweet, every email, and every Facebook comment crying out for more. Message received. Joe Bob will be back.”
“It hasn’t even been a full year since the 24-hour Last Drive-In marathon, but since then I’ve made thousands of new friends and reconnected with thousands of old ones,” adds Briggs. “The main reason I’m coming back to do another season is that this community of horror fans is greater than the sum of its parts, and it’s about something larger than horror. Don’t ask me what that thing is, but it’s a source of great joy to me.”
Season 2 will continue live, weekly double features when the series returns, at a date to be announced.