Brad Ingelsby, the filmmaker behind the hit detective drama "Mare of Easttown," is sticking with HBO for another three years under a new contract extension.
The deal takes Ingelsby beyond his upcoming series "Task," which premieres next year, and adds intrigue to whether his next project will be a sequel to "Mare of Easttown" or something original.
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Ingelsby, a Villanova graduate, has been with HBO since 2021. That's when "Mare of Easttown," starring Kate Winslet as a detective, put Delaware County in the spotlight. Ingelsby grew up in Berwyn, on the Main Line in Chester County, and used a fictionalized version of nearby Easttown as the backdrop for the crime drama, which was largely filmed in Delaware and Chester counties.
Ingelsby's extension was first reported by Variety, but there were no hints about whether the deal means "Mare of Easttown" is headed toward a sequel series. In June, HBO Head of Drama Francesca Orsi said "early discussions" had taken place about a new chapter that would explore Mare's character years after the events in the initial series.
Last month, during HBO's 2025 programming slate in Los Angeles, Ingelsby said he is "always open" to revisiting "Mare of Easttown," but he stopped short of calling it a plan. He talked about why it would present an unusual challenge to follow up the limited series, which was predicated on Winslet's character grieving her son's suicide while trying to solve a murder case.
"It would be hard to jump back in with 'Mare' and compete with losing a son — that was always a thing that I struggled with with 'Mare,' was, how do you compete with that?" Ingelsby said, via The Wrap. "If there's a way to come back to 'Mare' where she has something else to deal with that feels equally compelling emotionally, and would be able to bring the viewer back in, I'm always open to revisiting 'Mare."
"Mare of Easttown" was nominated for 16 Emmy Awards, winning four, including one for Winslet for outstanding lead actress in a limited anthology series or movie. In interviews, Winslet has expressed openness to rebooting her character if the story is able to live up to the success of the original series.
For much of the past year, Ingelsby and HBO's film crews have been back in the Philadelphia region working on "Task," another crime drama that stars Mark Ruffalo as an FBI agent on a task force investigating a string of drug house robberies.
Filming for the series included scenes shot in South Philly's Italian Market and in several Delaware County communities — Aston, Chadds Ford, Marcus Hook and Ridley. Ruffalo was in Media at Delaware County's government center and courthouse in June to film what was described as a "pivotal" scene in the series, and filming wrapped in August at Wissahickon Valley Park in Northwest Philadelphia.
The series also stars Tom Pelphrey, Emilia Jones, Thuso Mbedu, Raúl Castillo, Jamie McShane and Sam Keeley. Fabian Frankel and Allison Oliver were revealed to be part of the cast this month. HBO hasn't set a premiere date for the series, but is expected to be sometime next year.
Ingelsby also wrote and produced an upcoming feature film, "The Lost Bus," which stars Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. The drama is set during the deadly 2018 wildfires in California and will revolve around a bus driver attempting to navigate school children to safety.