FX orders Kurt Sutter’s The Bastard Executioner to series

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

As the critically acclaimed Sons of Anarchy came to a close late last year, series creator Kurt Sutter was already hard at work crafting his follow-up. The new show, The Bastard Executioner, tells the story of "a warrior knight in King Edward I’s charge who is broken by the ravages of war and vows to lay down his sword. When that violence finds him again, however, he's forced to pick up the bloodiest sword of all." Today we learned that FX has picked up The Bastard Executioner for a 10-episode first season.

The pilot recently wrapped production in Wales and Kurt Sutter sounds excited to get back to work:

I love history. I love theology. I love blood. It’s been very satisfying weaving fact and fiction to create a new mythology that combines all these elements, and with this extraordinary cast — Stephen Moyer, Katey Sagal and newcomer, Lee Jones — this world explodes on screen. I love working with FX and Fox21TVS. They’ve been my family for 15 years. They not only tolerate me, they embrace my extremely disturbing storytelling sensibilities.

Fox Television Group chair-CEOs Gary Newman and Dana Walden’s Fox 21 TV Studios will produce the project with FX Productions.

From his important contributions to The Shield to his epic run on Sons of Anarchy, Kurt has been one of FX’s most visionary artists, and we are proud to get him back on the air so soon after the unquestionable success of Sons. The Bastard Executioner, written by Kurt and directed by the talented Paris Barclay, is dangerous, brilliant, emotional and undeniable. This is the perfect follow-up to Sons and another huge event series for FX from Fox 21TVS and FXP. Viewers are in for a wild and spellbinding ride.

The cast of The Bastard Executioner includes Stephen Moyer (True Blood) as the “street-smart and noble” Milus Corbett, Katey Sagal (Sons of Anarchy) as mystical seer Annora of the Alders, Matthew Rhys (The Americans) as the leader of a Welsh rebel group and Lee Jones as Wilkin Brattle, the bastard executioner himself. Production will get underway this summer with the series slated to premiere this fall. The Bastard Executioner sounds like it could be a bloody good time, count me in.