‘Industry’ Is Back With Boats, Cocaine and Bigger Ambitions

The creators of “Industry” pitched the Season 3 opener to HBO with three words: “Coke and boats.”

“We were like, ‘Don’t kill us, but this is where we want to start Season 3,’” Mickey Down, one of the creators, said in a video call.

The HBO executives did not want to kill them. They were thrilled that the show, which follows a chaotic group of young employees at an investment bank in London and often deals with the more specialized details of finance, was going in a broader direction.

While illegal substances are nothing new for the show, most of the action had been centered on the trading floor. The new season, beginning on Aug. 11, opens with a hedonistic party on a luxury yacht, filmed in Majorca. It is a flashback with devastating implications for one of the principal characters, a rich woman named Yasmin, played by Marisa Abela.

“Coke and boats” was just one of the ways in which Down and the other creator, Konrad Kay, sought to expand the show, in the new season, Down said.

HBO hopes that the wider vision will draw a bigger audience. The series previously debuted new episodes on Mondays and now gets a marquee Sunday-night slot, taking the place of “House of the Dragon,” which just finished its second season.

“We have high hopes for the show,” said Francesca Orsi, head of drama for HBO, adding that if “the world embraces Season 3 in the way that we have, both in its critical praise but also its viewership, there’s no question that we want to continue moving forward with it.”