The Haunting of Hill House has officially been renewed for season 2 by Netflix, but in an intriguing twist it will actually be called The Haunting of Bly Manor, and will be based on Henry James' ghost story The Turn of the Screw. The first season of the series, which was created and directed by Mike Flanagan (Gerald's Game), was based on Shirley Jackson's novel of the same name. Now it seems that The Haunting will become an anthology series based on different famous ghost stories.

The critically acclaimed first season, The Haunting of Hill House, used Jackson's novel as the inspiration for a story about the Crain family, set in two different time periods. The first takes place in the past, when the Crain family moves into the strange and grand Hill House, and begins to experience supernatural goings-on that culminate in the shocking death of Olivia Crain, mother of the five Crain children. The second takes place in the present, as the now-adult Crain siblings are forced to confront what happened to them all those years ago, and eventually return to Hill House.

Related: The Haunting Of Hill House's Ending Explained

The Haunting of Hill House season 1 ended on a poignant note that seemed to wrap up the story, but also left open the possibility of a continuation. However, it seems that for the next season at least, Flanagan and co. will be moving on to a different haunted house - one that may be even more terrifying than the last.

Haunting Of Hill House Season 2 Is About Bly Manor

Given the success of the first season, it felt like a given that The Haunting of Hill House would get a season 2 order from Netflix. Sure enough, on February 21, 2019 - a little over four months since the release of season 1 - Netflix announced a second season with a teaser that featured a female voice whispering a passage from The Turn of the Screw: "The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness." Fans were invited to guess where the next haunting would take place, and once enough people had guessed correctly, the title of the new season was revealed: The Haunting of Bly Manor.

The official description of Bly Manor is that it's "a new chapter in the Haunting series" - strongly indicating that it will feature an entirely new collection of characters. It's possible, of course, that Flanagan will choose to bring back actors from Hill House in different roles, but no casting news has yet been confirmed.

The Turn Of The Screw's Story Explained

Turn of the Screw Illustration

Published in 1898, The Turn of the Screw is among the most famous works of British author Henry James. The "turn of the screw" in the title of James' novella refers to the "particular touch" of awfulness that having a child involved in a ghost story adds, since children are so much more vulnerable than adults. In the novella's opening, a group of people are gathered around a fire telling a story, and someone tells a tale in which a ghost appears to a child. The next in line to tell a story says, "If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children—?" The gathered listeners respond by ghoulishly demanding to hear the story.

In this grim tale, a young woman is hired to be the governess to two orphaned children: the sweet-natured Flora, and the older and somewhat troubled Miles, who has been expelled from school because of behavioral problems. The governess quickly develops feelings of great protectiveness towards the children, and is horrified when she begins to see apparitions of a man and a woman about the grounds of Bly, the residence where she has been hired to work. As she begins to delve into the identities of these two ghosts, she realizes that they have a particular fixation on Flora and Miles, and are seemingly determined to corrupt the children's innocence. Needless to say, it seems like the perfect story to continue the themes of The Haunting of Hill House.

Page 2: Previous Adaptations and How The Haunting Will Change the Story

The Innocents - Deborah Kerr

Previous Turn Of The Screw Adaptations

Easily the most famous adaptation of The Turn of the Screw is Jack Clayton's 1961 film The Innocents, starring Deborah Kerr in the lead role, and based in part on a stage play adaptation of the same name by Harold Pinter. The film is uniquely terrifying, and remains one of the most influential horror movies of all time. In fact, the ghosts seen (or not seen) lurking in the background of The Haunting of Hill House have echoes of The Innocents' famous shots of the ghostly Miss Jessel standing stock-still in the distance.

There have been numerous other film adaptations over the years, and there's actually a new adaptation on the way called The Turning, which was executive produced by Steven Spielberg and stars Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) as Miles and Flora. The most recent adaptation prior to this was a 2009 BBC TV film, which moved the setting of the story to the 1920s and starred Michelle Dockery as the governess, Ann, and Dan Stevens as a psychiatrist to whom she tells her story. This adaptation took certain creative liberties with the original story - but The Haunting of Bly Manor will almost certainly change the story even more.

Related: The Haunting of Hill House: Every Episode Ranked

How Netflix's Haunting Of Bly Manor Will Change The Story

Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is about a group of amateur paranormal investigators who seek to discover whether the stories of Hill House, a creepy old estate built by a deranged architect called Hugh Crain, is actually haunted. The research is led by Dr. Montague, who is accompanied by Hill House's heir, Luke Sanderson, and two women who have had previous experiences with paranormal phenomena: Theodora and Eleanor. While staying in the house, they begin to experience frightening supernatural events, and the novel ends with Eleanor - possessed by a strange obsession with Hill House - driving a car into a tree and presumably being killed.

The Haunting of Hill House kept some elements and character names from the book, making Hugh Crain the patriarch of the family that moves into the house, with children called Luke, Theo, and Nell (a.k.a. Eleanor). The Dudleys, two servants who look after the house, are also present in the TV show, and Flanagan also recreates the infamous "Whose hand was I holding?" scene from the novel. However, in order to adapt a short novel into a 10-hour TV show, the story was necessarily changed and made longer and more complex. Given that The Turn of the Screw is even shorter than The Haunting of Hill House, it's safe to assume that Flanagan will once again use the source material as inspiration for a largely original story. Even the title itself is a deviation, since Bly is never referred to as "Bly Manor" in James' story.

Though we don't know anything yet about The Haunting of Bly Manor's story and characters just yet, we can guess based on the first season that Flanagan will keep the bones of the original story and build upon them. Core characters like Miss Jessel, Peter Quint, Flora, Miles, and Mrs. Grose will likely still be present - though possibly altered. There's also a good chance that the story will, like The Haunting of Hill House, be moved to the present day as opposed to its original 1940s setting. We'll bring you further updates on The Haunting of Bly Manor as they become available.

More: The Ghosts You Missed In The Haunting Of Hill House

The Haunting of Bly Manor will release on Netflix in 2020.