To say The Challenge: All Stars has been a hit in its first season seems to be a serious understatement, as there has been a lot of positive buzz and feedback online ever since the show debuted.
The Paramount Plus spinoff featured 22 former Real World, Road Rules, and Fresh Meat stars returning to compete on an updated version of MTV’s The Challenge, a show that some of these individuals did many years ago.
Now, as All Stars has just reached Episode 7 and has only a few episodes left, many are wonder if there will be The Challenge: All Stars Season 2? One of the show’s executive producers may have shed some light on the future of the show.
Executive producer says they tried to make All Stars ‘really different’
Bunim/Murray President Julie Pizzi recently appeared on a Watch With Us Weekly podcast episode to speak about her roles with MTV’s shows over the years, including Road Rules and The Challenge. She’s now one of the executive producers of The Challenge: All Stars.
She mentioned starting out working in segment producing on Road Rules: Semester at Sea, which was the eighth season of the MTV show. That season featured Yes Duffy, who is amongst the All Stars cast. She continued working with Road Rules 9 and then many seasons of MTV’s The Challenge.
So for her, working on the spinoff has reunited her with many familiar faces from the past shows, which was a large part of putting the All Stars on Paramount Plus. It serves as a way to catch viewers up with what these former reality TV stars have been up to and what’s going on in their lives now.
Even with that aspect, it’s still The Challenge with intense competitions, eliminations, and of course, TJ Lavin’s final. However, Julie spoke about how they tried to make it different from the main show.
“We are leaning into the comedy,” she told Us Weekly, adding, “Allowing ourselves to lean into nostalgia and comedy, that does feel really different than the intensity that is The Challenge.
While MTV’s regular season of The Challenge has its fair share of comedic moments, many are praising the OG spinoff for bringing back a fun element that was missing. Commentary and confessional interview sound bites from many of the cast members have seemed to make All Stars entertaining for viewers.
Pizzi explained why All Stars season was only nine episodes
Pizzi also explained why the All Stars season is so much shorter than the regular season. All Stars checks in with nine episodes versus 20 or so on recent MTV seasons of The Challenge.
She said eight episodes is a “sweet spot” in terms of how much viewers binge on a show or season, so it may have been partly an “analytics” decision. However, she brought up another big point.
“But the other thing is that a lot of these cast members have real jobs. They have moved on in their lives. So we couldn’t keep them for 10 weeks,” she told US Weekly.
Cast members quarantined for a week before filming for another two or three weeks on All Stars, versus a much longer time spent away from home on MTV’s regular season.
Is The Challenge: All Stars Season 2 coming to Paramount Plus?
Based on US Weekly’s report, there is no official confirmation of The Challenge: All Stars Season 2 coming to Paramount Plus. However, Julie revealed during her interview that “over 100 past Real World or Road Rules players” have expressed interest in being on the show in the future.
“We still have a lot of cast members that we haven’t tapped into that want to do the show. My guess is that we’ll continue that for a little while. Then we might open it up as we go with success,” she told Us Weekly.
“We have over 100 past Real World or Road Rules players that are interested in doing another cycle. People have reached out to us. It is, like, a wealth of great personalities that are willing to do it, because they thought it looked like a lot of fun,” Pizzi said.
Based on social media tweets or interviews, just a few of those interested former cast members may include Heather Cooke, Jasmine “Jaz” Reynaud, and CJ Koegel.
Mark Long also said he’s spoken with other longtime Challenge stars who seem to have an interest in appearing on All Stars in the future, including Wes Bergmann and Johnny Bananas. Obviously landing those multi-time champions, among other former stars would be huge for the All Stars franchise.
Based on all of the above and the continued positive feedback that the spinoff is getting, it seems The Challenge: All Stars Season 2 could be on the way in the future once Paramount Plus confirms it. The fans certainly appear ready for more.
The Challenge: All Stars episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.
Episodes of The Challenge are now streaming on Paramount+. Try it FREE!
The link above is an affiliate link. This means that for any qualifying purchase you make, we may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.