
Ben Stiller has left fans worried after revealing he is stepping back from directing the upcoming third season of Severance.
The hit Apple TV+ drama has been hailed as much-watch TV by viewers and critics alike since it first premiered in 2022, following employees in the macrodata refinement team at the mysterious Lumon Industries.
It emerges that they have undergone a procedure which disconnects their work selves (innies) from who they really are on the outside (outies), effectively creating two different people.
Adam Scott leads the star-studded cast, alongside Britt Lower, John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Christopher Walken, Tramell Tillman and Patricia Arquette.
Ben serves as the executive producer for the series and has been behind the camera for the majority of the episodes so far – but confirmed that he will be taking a back seat from directing the third season.
Instead, the LA Times reports that he will be focusing his efforts on a World War II survival film, which tells the story of an airman in occupied France who gets ‘involved with the French Resistance’.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
However, the Meet The Parents star is still heavily involved in the program, and spent a lot of time planning for season three alongside showrunner Dan Erickson and the writing team.
Fans were left devastated by the update and flocked to Reddit to discuss what this could possibly mean for the series going forward.
DoubleA77 posted: ‘Wow that’s a real shame. His directing has been one of the big highlights of the show.
‘I do hope this at least lets other talent shine like Jessica Lee Gagne’s episode 7 from S2.’
MajinJellyBean fumed: ‘Just great. He directed easily the best episodes of the entire show. His directing is so far and beyond anyone else on the show you can tell when he’s doing an episode before you see the ending credits.
‘Show could suffer without him directing the most important episodes.’
Dotcalm agreed: ‘In my opinion he directed all the best episodes. Huge bummer he won’t return.’
‘F****k. This tends to happen with third seasons of shows where either the showrunner or the “name” director drops out. Hope the quality doesn’t suffer,’ TheTruckWashChannel wrote.
As IgloosRuleOK reminded fans: ‘It’s a bummer, but he’s still EP, still occasionally in the writers room and said he’ll be involved until the end.’
After a painful three-year wait, the second season of Severance finally hit our screens at the beginning of 2025, transporting viewers back to those bright white corridors of the Lumon offices.
It dominated the charts on the streaming services, with impressed critics stating that ’Severance is already wearing the belt for the best show on television’.
The episodes somehow ended on a more painful cliffhanger than the first series, but Ben previously insisted that we won’t be waiting as long for it to return.
‘No, the plan is not to [wait three years],’ he promised on the New Heights podcast. ‘Hopefully we’ll be announcing what the plan is very soon.’
Severance is available to stream on Apple TV+.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.