Prime Video's Bloodaxe Adds Five Cast Members for Season 2 — Before Season 1 Has Even Aired

Prime Video has added five cast members to the second season of its historical drama Bloodaxe — a show whose first season has not yet premiered.

Gard Løkke has joined the series as a regular, meaning he appears across the season rather than in a handful of episodes. Melina Åkerman, Kieran Bew, Sebastian Bull and George Burgess have all signed on in recurring roles, which carry smaller episode counts than a series regular but go beyond a one-off guest spot. Deadline reported the additions on 19 August 2026 (Deadline).

Filming on Season 2 has already begun in Ireland. That is notable because Season 1 is not scheduled to launch globally on Prime Video until early 2027. The cast news lands well before audiences have seen a single frame of the show.

The unusual timing traces back to a pre-emptive Season 2 order — meaning Prime Video greenlit a second run before the first had aired, a move that signals a platform's confidence in a title (or, at minimum, a desire to keep production pipelines running without gaps). Deadline was first to report that order in the summer of 2026 (Deadline).

Bloodaxe is an MGM Television series created by Michael and Horatio Hirst, who serve as executive producers, showrunners and writers. The show chronicles the rise of Norse raider Erik Bloodaxe, played by Xavier Molyneux, and his wife Gunnhild, known as the Mother of Kings, played by Jessica Madsen.

Michael Hirst is a familiar name in the historical-drama field — he created and wrote Vikings, the History Channel series that ran for six seasons and helped establish the appetite for Norse-era storytelling that Bloodaxe now extends. Horatio Hirst, his son, co-writes and co-runs the series.

What makes this stand out is the bet being placed. Ordering a second season before the first has aired is not unheard of in streaming, but it is not the default either. It means committing production budget, cast contracts and crew work — in this case in Ireland — to a show whose audience size is still unknown. For the roughly two hundred people who work on a production of this scale, a pre-emptive renewal is job security before the premiere.

For viewers, the practical effect is simpler: when Bloodaxe does arrive in early 2027, a second season will already be in production or wrapped, shortening the wait for whatever comes next.