‘Altered Carbon’ Season 2 Air Date, Spoilers: 8 Episodes Instead of 10, Deviating from Books

The first season of “Altered Carbon” was a huge hit but it was also quite expensive to make. Starring Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi Kovacs, it garnered quite a bit of a following from viewers. In “Altered Carbon” Season 2, though, the actor will be replaced by Anthony Mackie. This makes sense since the second season will feature a new sleeve and a 30-year gap between the first. What’s more, it seems the story will be deviating from the books.

As ScreenRant reports, “Altered Carbon” Season 2 will run for eight episodes, which is two less than the first. This is to be expected since, as expensive as season 1 was to produce, the upcoming episodes will cost even more. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the story of the second season will be more expansive and might actually feature aliens.

This is also why there have been reports that the showrunners might be deviating from the books a bit for “Altered Carbon” Season 2. Digital effects are costly enough without adding extra strain on the budget with nuclear explosions and alien spaceships. As a result, the story might be just as much of a surprise to those who already read the books as those who have not.

Currently, there is a desire to have three more seasons once “Altered Carbon” Season 2 airs. However, much of this will hinge on the success of the upcoming episodes. If they don’t perform as well as Netflix might have hoped, the entire series could end with just the second season.

Thanks to the nature of the show’s “sleeve” concept, it has the potential to become more of an anthology than a direct series. If so, it does not necessarily need to rely too much on the books to work once it is already past what exists in literary fiction. For those who love the novels, though, “Altered Carbon” Season 2 will still likely deliver the thrills they are looking for.