ITV commissions second season of Crime for ITVX
March 21, 2022
Dougray Scott will return as troubled detective, Ray Lennox, in a second season of the original crime thriller, Crime, adapted from the best-selling novel by one of Scotland’s greatest ever writers, Irvine Welsh.
Produced by Buccaneer Media and Off Grid Film and TV, and scripted by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh alongside long-standing screenwriting partner, Dean Cavanagh, the six-part drama will be an ITVX premiere, exclusive to ITV’s new free streaming service many months ahead of a linear transmission on ITV main channel.
Season one of Crime will also have a free premiere on ITVX ahead of the second series launch.
Actor and executive producer Scott commented: “Making Crime has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my career. I’m so grateful to get to work once again with the great Irvine Welsh, my wonderful producing partner Tony Wood and all at Buccaneer and ITV. I feel very fortunate.”
The series has been commissioned for ITVX and ITV by Head of Drama, Polly Hill, who said: “Crime was a brilliantly original series and a perfect fit for ITVX, where we want to showcase drama as distinctive and original as this police procedure from Irvine Welsh. The next chapter in Lennox’s story is just as bold and we look forward to introducing a new audience to Crime when it comes onto ITVX next year. Huge thanks to the brilliance of Irvine Welsh, Dougray Scott and Buccaneer Media.”
Welsh commented:“I loved working on the first season of Crime, and Dean Cavanagh and myself are already having a blast developing scripts for the second series. It was wonderful to work with such a talented cast and we hope to push those memorable characters further this time. No more Mister Nice Guy from and Dean and I.”
Following the hugely successful first series which debuted for UK audiences last autumn, filming will commence on Crime 2 in summer 2022. It will be once more set in Edinburgh.
Scott’s complex character, Ray Lennox, is now settled back into life with Edinburgh’s Serious Crimes team, having fully recovered from his breakdown after the toll of his last investigation. And when a high-ranking member of the establishment is found dead in a Leith warehouse, Lennox is thrown into a case which quickly reveals itself as the work of a serial killer. As victims mount up, Lennox realises these are anything but random. This is the work of a solitary killer with an axe to grind. Never far from his psychological turmoil, Lennox is pushed back towards his demons by this new case.
Crime is being produced by Buccaneer Media and Off Grid Film and TV. Buccaneer Media is a London-based international content production company led by joint CEOs Tony Wood and Richard Tulk-Hart.
Wood added: “Following the reception of the first series, everyone at Buccaneer is thrilled to be returning to Edinburgh to chart the next steps in Lennox’s story. Naturally we can’t wait to bring Irvine’s script to life and capture another remarkable performance by Dougray.”
Buccaneer Media is in partnership with Canada’s Cineflix Media, who will be responsible for the international distribution of the drama.