HBO’s ‘Vice Principals’ Starring Danny McBride Will Only Run For Two Seasons

HBO’s new comedy “Vice Principals” starring Danny McBride will only last one school year — or in television land, two seasons. Variety reports that the show’s creators have no intention of expanding the series.

“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 premiere for the series. “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.”

McBride added that he and the show’s creators had an unusual amount of creative control in crafting the show.

“HBO trusted us to make those episodes without anyone watching them, so they really, really trust us,” McBride said. So if seasons one and two are a spectacular hit, would McBride and Hill consider extending the show? “No,” Hill said. “We already shot the 18 episodes and that’s it.”

David Gordon Green, who first cast McBride in his film “All the Real Girls” more than a decade ago, directed two episodes of the series. He also directed 12 episodes of McBride’s first HBO series, “Eastbound & Down,” in which McBride played a particularly unsympathetic and obnoxious former Major League Baseball player. “We march to our own beat,” Green told Variety. “We try to tell the stories we want to tell, without compromising, and we try not to follow market trends.”

“Vice Principals” will premiere on HBO on July 17.