'Ozark' Renewed for Season 2 at Netflix

Netflix is going back to the Ozarks.

Less than a month after its premiere, the streaming giant has renewed Jason Bateman and Laura Linney drama Ozark for a second season.

Produced by Media Rights Capital, the drama revolves around financial planner Marty Byrde (Bateman) and his wife, Wendy (Linney), and their family's sudden relocation from the suburbs of Chicago to a summer resort community in the Missouri Ozarks. Rather than the familiar skyscrapers and trading floors, Ozark explores capitalism, family dynamics and survival through the eyes of (anything but) ordinary Americans.

Bateman directs and exec produces via his Aggregate Films Banner. Chris Mundy serves as showrunner on the drama, which is created and exec produced by Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams.

The series launched July 21 to mixed reviews. THR's Daniel Fienberg said the series was "not boring, but self-serious to the extreme" while declaring that Ozark was "pulp masquerading as prestige" and "four or five different shows doing battle at once." The drama has a Metacritic score of 67 (with an 8.4 user score) and a 65 on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer (and a 93 percent audience rating). Netflix, like fellow streamers Amazon and Hulu, does not release viewership data.

The Ozark renewal comes at an increasingly busy time for the streaming giant, which this week handed out a 10-episode pickup to Chuck Lorre comedy The Kominsky Method starring Michael Douglas and signed super-producer Shonda Rhimes to an exclusive overall deal.

Ozark landed at Netflix after being developed at MRC under the independent production company's model of going straight to series and shopping the completed package. Ozark extends MRC's relationship with Netflix beyond House of Cards, as well as with Bateman (beyond Arrested Development).

Ozark is part of a drama lineup at Netflix that also includes House of Cards (currently awaiting a renewal), Stranger Things, The Crown, Netflix, Black Mirror, 13 Reasons Why and the Marvel suite of superheroes, among others.