Even though Double Agents has yet to premiere, many viewers are wondering if The Challenge Season 37 will take place.
As of right now, there’s no reason to believe there won’t be and an executive producer for the show recently gave some thoughts about it.
Also, she talked about how spoilers are hurting the show’s future and which two cast members she’s proud to have seen evolve under her watch.
The Challenge executive producer on stars from the show
On the newest Reality Life with Kate Casey episode, Kate spoke to Julie Pizzi, President of Entertainment and Development at Bunim/Murray Productions and Executive Producer of The Challenge.
Kate asked Julie about her experiences working on The Challenge all these years and to tell her which competitor she was particularly proud to have watched evolve in their journey through the show.
Julie listed two particular competitors: Mike “The Miz” Mizanin and Theo Von. She said that Miz was on the first Challenge she worked on, and he knew who he wanted to be from the get-go. However, not a lot of people took him seriously. She also said Mike was calculating and smart about what he was doing.
With Theo Von, Julie said he really “lit up the screen” and didn’t have a lot of life experience heading into The Challenge. However, he was also leaving handwritten notes to thank the crew and things like that. She said she’s not sure he even wanted to go into comedy back then, but here he is now.
Julie also dished on who may have the best overall political games on the show. She listed veterans Johnny Bananas, Wes Bergmann, Ashley Mitchell, and Aneesa Ferreira.
Double Agents filming location was ‘otherworldly’
Fans are in for a treat with the upcoming season, as it will feature not only competitive events but also gorgeous scenery.
During the interview, Julie mentioned how they filmed Season 36, aka Double Agents, in Iceland, “because it was pretty much the only place on the planet that we could do this safely with COVID.”
“It was probably one of the most beautiful backdrops I’ve ever seen. Like the show looks otherworldly now,” she said with regard to the Double Agents location.
What is the future of The Challenge?
Julie touched on some other interesting aspects of the cast, spoilers, and the future of The Challenge.
She talked about how they’ve started bringing in people from other reality shows and how it’s been successful for finding “new blood” for the series. She also mentioned that they will be looking at bringing viral TikTok stars into the cast at some point. However, she said part of the problem is many of them are too young for it.
The topic of Challenge spoilers came up, as Kate said some fans wondered if former winner Derrick Kosinski could appear on the show despite having a podcast about it. Julie said he could, but there would be confidentiality involved where he couldn’t talk about the show until it was airing.
Kate brought up how some websites do spoilers about the show and asked if it drives them bonkers not to be able to control it.
“I have to tell you this year, the speed of which spoilers were coming out, although not all accurate, was sort of heart-wrenching,” Julie said.
It made them realize someone on the cast or crew is violating their confidentiality.
“I mean, listen, the real threat is, if we can’t control this, does the show go off the air? It’s like these superfans are doing this at the jeopardy of the show,” she continued.
However, Julie mentioned this year they’ve brought in “an internet sleuth” to try to figure out how the leaks happened so they can find the people responsible.
As far as The Challenge Season 37, it seems that it is also already in the works. According to Julie, they’re “trying to book locations for 37,” but it’s hard to determine where will be safe to film due to COVID-19.
The Challenge: Double Agents premieres on Wednesday, December 9, at 8/7c on MTV.