Starz Renews 50 Cent Drama ‘Power’ for Second Season

Starz is committing to Power.

The premium cable network has renewed the drama from executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The season two order is for 10 episodes, up two from its freshman run.

The series, which bowed Saturday, revolves around James “Ghost” St. Patrick (The A-Team‘s Omari Hardwick), a wealthy New York City nightclub owner who caters to the city’s elite. He wants to build an empire and turn the club into a Fortune 500 business, but there’s just one problem: Ghost is living a double life. When he’s not at the club, he’s the kingpin of the most lucrative drug network in New York, catering to a very exclusive clientele. His marriage, family and business all become unknowingly threatened as he is tempted to leave his criminal life behind and become the rags-to-riches businessman he wants to be most of all.

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The Good Wife‘s Courtney Kemp Agboh created the drama and serves as showrunner on the CBS Television Studios series. Mark Canton (300), David Knoller and Randall Emmett (End of Watch) executive produce alongside 50 Cent, who makes a cameo in the series. Starz picked up the drama straight to series last June. Production on season two will resume in September in and around New York as well as at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn.

Power got a solid start over the course of its premiere weekend, though the 462,000 viewers who tuned into the inaugural Saturday broadcast was nothing significant. Multiple Saturday and Sunday airings grossed more than 2 million viewers for Starz, with multiplatform sampling bringing in another 480,000 viewers. Starz, which is not beholden to the advertiser-favored adults 18-49 demographic, did point out that its concentration with the under-50 set was the strongest for a network original since flagship (and high ratings watermark) Spartacus. More than half of Power’s weekend audience fell into the key demo.

“Power is a project extremely close to my heart and working with Chris Albrecht, Carmi Zlotnik and the Starz team has been the perfect fit for this. Viewers may be loving the start of season one now, but season two will blow them away,” 50 Cent said.

Power joins a lineup of original scripted fare including Black Sails, Da Vinci’s Demons and the upcoming Outlander, Flesh and Bone and comedies Survivor’s Remorse and Blunt Talk. The cabler also has co-production The Missing set for the fall.