Ronald Gladden and Anthony Norman may be teaming up soon. The two unsung stars of Prime Video’s “Jury Duty” series will watch what they went through as someone else experiences it, as the streamer has ordered a third season of the ambitious docu-hoax comedy.
“Jury Duty” centers on Mark, a civilian who doesn’t know they’re on a TV show, but everyone around them is an improv comedian. In Season 2’s “Jury Duty Presents Corporate Retreat,” Anthony Norman is hired as a temp to help the family-owned hot sauce company, Rockin’ Grandma’s, with a corporate retreat. He was told that a documentary team was following the business to document the leadership transition from owner Doug to lazy son Dougie Jr.
What he didn’t realize was that Doug, Dougie Jr., and all the other employees were actors 24/7. I thought it was a real-life crazy moment, acting out a loose script to achieve the standards Norman had envisioned. In the final episode, Norman somehow stands up and saves Rockin’ Grandma’s from being sold – a story that was concocted to see if Norman could survive this. And he did just that, earning $150,000 as a thank you.
Since then, Norman has become close with Gladden, his first “jury duty” mark. Gladden thought he had volunteered to serve on the jury, but all hell broke out and the jury was sequestered. He similarly came away unscathed, but was praised by the cast.
Of course, planning and executing the “jury duty” conceit is a big job and takes time. Jury Duty premiered in 2023 and ultimately won a Peabody Award and received Emmy nominations, including Best Comedy Series and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy (for James Marsden, who played a fellow juror in the original version). Company Retreat was recently released for the first time in 2026.
“It took us three years from the first one to this one, so we’ve got a long way to go to get there,” executive producer Chris Kula (who also appeared on “Company Retreat”) told Variety’s TV Fest audience last week. But he has good ideas for a third edition. “I’m probably thinking of something like a fake TV show, where you go to an awards show and someone is tricked into giving heartfelt testimony about something that doesn’t exist.”
The show is created by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed by Jake Szymanski.
During the variety show FYC’s panel discussion, Kula talked about the difficulty of completing the show. “Every day on set was scary because I was afraid that today could be the end of everything,” he said. “Someone could say the wrong thing, a camera could see it. Certain elements could unravel everything we’ve ever done. So when we get to the final day of the big finale, it all comes to a head and the heroes rise up. I woke up three hours before call time that day because my adrenal glands were pumped. It was a risky move, and I knew there would be no second takes.
Kula praised Norman and the show’s casting executives for coming up with the idea, calling it “a wonderful human gem. We wrote the script for the season expecting our hero to live up to this ideal…When he came in with an Aaron Sorkin-esque monologue and started pleading with the CEO and said, ‘Dad to dad, I have something to tell you,’ I got goosebumps. My jaw dropped. He was just an absolute hero.”
