[Updated] Severance season 2 reportedly facing delays amid bad blood behind the scenes—Ben Stiller responds

Unlike the employees of Severance’s Lumon Industries, the creative team behind the Apple TV+ drama have ostensibly not received a procedure siloing their work and personal lives. According to a new report from Puck, dislike between the series’ co-showrunners Dan Erickson and Mark Friedman, not to mention extensive script rewrites and episode costs in the $20 million range, have led to delays on season 2.

The initial report of behind-the-scenes unrest came from Puck’s Matthew Belloni, Severance’s second season has been “plagued for months by pricey problems, including scrapped scripts and the dreaded showrunners who don’t speak to each other.” Erickson is a first-time series creator who penned Severance’s pilot; Friedman, a veteran writer-producer with credits on AMC’s Dispatches From Elsewhere, Fox’s Wayward Pines, and more.

Puck reports that the pair “ended up hating each other” during filming for season 1. Friedman apparently wanted out ahead of season 2, but Severance executive producer and director Ben Stiller—who previously collaborated with Friedman on 2014’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb—reportedly coaxed him to stay after Stiller came up empty-handed in the search for a replacement.

On Friday, a source close to the production disputed the report, telling The A.V. Club that Severance’s second season remains on schedule without major changes in the budgets. The source also said that Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman, and House Of Cards creator Beau Willimon—who was recently tapped to assist the series on season 2 and beyond—have been working together without issue.

As Severance continues to work on a second season, there’s still no official timeline for when fans might get the next chapter of the story. Apple TV+ is already planning a third and fourth season for the series. Even with season 2 still unfinished, the streamer reportedly hopes to get a third season written ahead of a probable WGA strike.

[Update 4/28 4:38 PM ET]: Responding to a version of this report in The Daily Beast, Ben Stiller tweeted, “No one’s going to the break room. We’re on the same really slow schedule we’ve always been on. Same target air date we’ve always had. Love our fans and each other and we all are just working to make the show as good as possible.”