M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Servant’ is filming Season 2 in Philly later this month
Filming will take place near the 2100 block of Spruce Street through the winter and spring.
M. Night Shyamalan’s creepy Apple TV+ series Servant is returning to Philly later this month to begin filming its second season.
Servant is slated to begin production on Jan. 24, according to a flier from production company Uncle George Productions that was distributed to neighborhood residents. Filming will take place periodically around the 2100 block of Spruce Street through the winter and spring.
“The Rittenhouse neighborhood is iconic to Philadelphia, and our production is proud to showcase the beautiful surroundings and great architecture,” the flier reads. Uncle George Productions hosted a neighborhood meeting earlier this month informing residents of planned street closures and parking restrictions, and indicated that future announcements with specifics would come via the community app Nextdoor.
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The company also said that there are plans for free displacement parking for residents affected by filming.
Set in Philadelphia, Servant follows a wealthy area couple who lose a newborn child and subsequently use a lifelike doll to help cope with the trauma amid more sinister, mysterious events. The series’ first season premiered on the Apple TV+ streaming service in November to generally positive reviews, earning an overall rating of 85% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
“More than anything, it’s a couple that’s refusing to accept something that happened,” Shyamalan said about Servant last year. “They’re using their wealth and status as a shield … It’s fractured underneath it all and they’re just barely holding it together."
Apple TV+ renewed Servant for a second season before its first-season premiere. The show’s first season will conclude Friday, with the posting of its 10th episode.
Shyamalan began filming the first season in the Philadelphia area in late 2018, originally under the working title Crumpet. The show’s production attracted media attention that December when a mock car crash in Rittenhouse Square created confusion about whether the scene was real.
The Montgomery County-raised director has long filmed his projects at least partially in the Philly area, dating back to his 1998 comedy Wide Awake, which stars Rosie O’Donnell as a nun with a penchant for the Phillies. Late last year, Shyamalan stumped for changes to Pennsylvania’s movie tax credit system, saying that alterations could make the film industry in the state “explode.”
Shortly after Servant came to Philadelphia, AMC’s Dispatches from Elsewhere shot around Philly. That show is scheduled to be released in March.