Chris Hemsworth’s ‘Limitless’ Renewed at Nat Geo
Chris Hemsworth will continue testing his phyical and mental boundaries for Nat Geo.
The Disney-owned company has renewed Limitless With Chris Hemsworth for a second season, which like the first will stream on Disney+. The formal pickup comes more than a year after the first season debuted in November 2022.
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Nat Geo and Disney+ have also renewed A Real Bug’s Life, the (partially staged) nature series that uses the 1998 Pixar movie A Bug’s Life as its inspiration. That pickup was much quicker, coming two weeks after the series premiered. Nat Geo announced both pickups during its time at the Television Critics Association press tour on Thursday.
Season one of Limitless followed Hemsworth as he explored — using himself as a test subject — scientific developments in helping people live longer, healthier lives. Season two will focus on “a series of physical and mental obstaclesthat people across the world face daily: mental agility, pain, burnout and interpersonal connection,” according to the show’s logline.
“Working on Limitless was an eye-opening experience that allowed me to reflect on my strengths, vulnerabilities, and all the ways in which we as humans can plan toward longevity,” Hemsworth said in a statement. “For this next season, we are attempting to raise the bar and go even deeper in this exploration alongside health and wellness experts from around the globe.”
Added Tom McDonald, executive vp global factual and unscripted content at National Geographic, “Millions of viewers around the world were inspired and wowed by the combination of science, endeavor and the incredibly committed Chris Hemsworth in the first season, so it’s with huge pride that we announce its return. This new season will have the scale, the drama and the challenges you’d expect from Limitless, but we’ve also got some big and exciting surprises in store for the audience and for Chris himself.”
Series creators Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel of Protozoa Pictures executive produce Limitless with Jane Root and Tom Watt-Smith of Nutopia and Hemsworth and Ben Grayson of Wild State.
A Real Bug’s Life, narrated by Awkwafina, is set to stream its second season in the fall. The second season will also include a making-of episode that details how the filmmakers captured the up-close world of bugs. The show comes from Plimsoll Productions. Martha Holmes, Grant Mansfield and Tom Hugh-Jones executive produce for Plimsoll along with Nat Geo’s Justine Schmidt and Pamela Caragol.
More Nat Geo announcements from TCA:
– The Falcon and the Winter Soldier star Anthony Mackie will star in the second installment of Shark Beach (Hemsworth led the first one), which will be set around his hometown of New Orleans and take on depredation, in which sharks prey on a fisher’s catch before it can be retrieved.
– Nat Geo has greenlit a feature documentary about Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel to space. Sally, from director Cristina Costantini (Mucho Mucho Amor), will explore Ride’s life and trailblazing career via archival footage and interviews with close friends and colleagues.
– The company has also ordered a series called Pathological: Chasing a True-Crime Con Man that will detail how author and serial killer expert Stéphane Bourgoin built his reputation “on a foundation of morbid lies.” It’s based on a 2022 New Yorker story by Lauren Collins.
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