Production has officially begun on the second season of Hulu and J.J. Abrams' Stephen King series Castle Rock. We already know that this new season will follow the origin story of Misery nurse Annie Wilkes played by Lizzy Caplan, and today we have a ton of further info on the upcoming season via director Greg Yaitanes.

Greg Yaitanes says this.

"I'm directing the first episode [and] an episode later in the season, too. [Co-creator] Dusty [Thomason] pitched me a departure episode later in the season that was too enticing to say no to, [but] I was happy to come in to launch the season. [...] It was great to get that call."

He continues.

"We wanted to evolve the look on a visual level and move [more] and be with characters more. One of the things that worked well with The Queen was a point of view. That episode had a strong point of view of the character, so [we're] bringing that into Annie's story and giving the show [...] more urgency this year, more tension. We're taking the things that worked well in Season 1 and taking them up a level."

Castle Rock season two is all set to star Lizzy Caplan (Cloverfield, Hot Tub Time Machine) as Misery's killer nurse Annie Wilkes, who will be dealing with mental issues while stuck in the titular town of Castle Rock. Caplan will be joined in this new season by Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redeption) as Reginald "Pop" Merrill, the dying head of the Merrill crime family. Paul Sparks will costar as Pop's nephew John "Ace" Merrill, who is a character that was played in Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's The Body aka Stand by Me by Kiefer Sutherland.

The rest of the current cast includes Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade, The Addams Family) as Annie's daughter, Joy Wilkes; Yusra Warsama (The Last Days on Mars) as Dr Nadia Omar, a Harvard trained doctor working at the hospital in Jerusalem's Lot, and Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips, Blade Runner 2049) as Abdi Omar, Nadia's older brother who wants to strengthen Somali ties in their community. Meanwhile, Matthew Alan (13 Reasons Why, Sons of Anarchy) plays Chris Merrill, Ace's brother who finds himself stuck between the feud between the Merrills and the Somali community, and John Hoogenakker (The Girlfriend Experience, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas) as a man with a complicated connection to Annie Wilkes.

For those who may have forgotten, the first season of the anthology series starred André Holland as Henry Matthew Deaver, Melanie Lynskey as Molly Strand, Bill Skarsgård as "The Kid," Jane Levy as Diane "Jackie" Torrance, and Sissy Spacek as Ruth Deaver. Scott Glenn joined them as Alan Pangborn, Terry O'Quinn as Dale Lacy, Chosen Jacobs as Henry's son, and Frances Conroy as Martha Lacy. There isn't currently a release date set for the new season, but we will make sure to pass along word as soon as we hear anything further. This update comes to us via an interview Greg Yaitanes conducted over at IndieWire Indiewire.