Starz has renewed its Spartacus franchise for another season ahead of the premiere of Spartacus: Vengeance, on Jan. 27.
The as-yet untitled campaign will begin production in New Zealand in early 2012.
The most recent version of Spartacus, the prequel Gods of the Arena, averaged 6.2 million total viewers per episode across all linear channels and on-demand during run that began in January 2011.
Australian actor Liam McIntyre (Ektopos, HBO's The Pacific) is now manning the title role, following the death of Andy Whitfield, -- who portrayed the title character in the premium network's Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which bowed in January 2010.
Whitfileld succumbed to a long battle with non-Hodgkin-lymphoma this past September. With Whitfield's health uncertain, Starz elected to air the six-episode prequel Gods of the Arena, which premiered this past January.
The premium network officially cast McIntyre in the lead role that month, after Whitfield suffered a recurrence of the cancer the previous fall.
