Fans of “Eastbound & Down” will be happy to know that “Vice Principals,” the new HBO comedy starring Danny McBride, promises the same type of debauchery. “Vice Principals,” however, is settling into the television trend of “short and sweet,” in other words — few seasons.
“The whole series is only 18 episodes and that’s it. We just wanted to make a really long movie. It’s one school year and a complete story,” McBride said at the show’s premiere. “This was an old screenplay that Jody [Hill] and I wrote back in 2006. But we needed it to be longer so we added and reworked it and broke it up into 18 segments.”
“HBO trusted us to make those episodes without anyone watching them, so they really, really trust us,” McBride said. When asked if they would be interested in making more episodes if the first two seasons go well, executive producer and director Hill had a very simple answer.
“No,” he said. “We already shot the 18 episodes and that’s it.”
Although no strangers to success on HBO, their new show will be going up against critically acclaimed series like “Veep” and “Silicon Valley.” Executive producer and director David Gordon Green, who is also McBride and Hill’s longtime friend and collaborator, isn’t phased by the pressure since he says they’ve never been “critical darlings.”
“We march to our own beat,” Green said. “We try to tell the stories we want to tell, without compromising and we try not to follow market trends.”
“Vice Principals” premieres July 17 on HBO.
