Ricky Gervais comedy-drama After Life is coming back for season 3 on Netflix, it's been revealed. Along with confirmation of the show's renewal, Gervais has reportedly signed an eight-figure deal with Netflix to create new stand-up specials and TV shows.
After Life is about a local newspaper journalist dealing with the death of his wife, and attempting to bond with those in his community, even if he's not always in the best mood for it.
The renewal of After Life isn't a massive surprise. Gervais is popular in his UK homeland, and the show was the most-streamed content on Netflix UK during its release weekend on the occasions we were looking at the app, even outpacing the Chris Hemsworth action hit Extraction. During a nationwide lockdown, that's likely to represent a big audience.
Gervais has previously released a stand-up special on Netflix, too, called Humanity, as well as a movie called Special Correspondents. He's also a voice actor in the recent animated movie The Willoughbys.
Thanks, THR.
After The Office
Gervais' previous work includes The Office, an enormously popular sitcom that shaped modern comedy, in a lot of ways, and led to an extremely successful US remake. Extras followed, a subversive and extremely funny look at fame from the perspective of an outsider. Life's Too Short, starring Warwick Davis as himself, was very much in the Extras mold. All three were co-created with writer/director Stephen Merchant.
We'd some of call Gervais' modern work, post-Extras, as more of an acquired taste. There was a maudlin quality to Gervais' self-starring show Derek that made it pretty hard to like. That said, The Ricky Gervais Show animated series, based on the podcasts of the same name, was bizarre in concept but really funny in execution.
You probably already know whether you're the right person to enjoy Gervais' work or not these days, but evidently After Life has really found an audience.
