Cinemax says Strike Back will return for season two

Cinemax’s first primetime drama series Strike Back is a keeper. HBO’s sibling cable network has picked up a 10-episode second season of the action series to air next year. Filming will begin in South Africa in early 2012.

Returning as producing partners to Cinemax/HBO are Left Bank and Sky, which will air the series in the U.K. Also coming back are Left Bank’s Andy Harries and Sky’s Huw Kennair-Jones as executive producers, series producer Michael Casey, head of production Marigo Kehoe, series directors Bill Eagles, who will direct four new episodes, Paul Wilmshurst, who will direct two episodes, and writer Tony Saint, who will write a number of episodes and co-executive produce.

There must be major deaths coming in the final episodes of Season 1 of Strike Back, which ends Oct. 21, as Cinemax declined to announce the cast for Season 2 “due to plot spoilers in upcoming episodes”.

Season 1 starred Sullivan Stapleton and Philip Winchester, with Amanda Mealing, Eva Birthistle, Jimi Mistry, Rhashan Stone, Michelle Lukes and Richard Armitage. The current season of the show tells the story of a charismatic former U.S. Special Forces operative (Stapleton) who joins with a stealth British military unit when a resourceful international terrorist group plots a major attack.