Reese Witherspoon has dropped a hint that 'Big Little Lies' will return for a second season

Reese, who played Madeline in the mini-series, uploaded a photo of herself and her 'Big Little Lies' co-stars Nicole and Laura Dern to her Instagram on Sunday (07.05.17) along with a caption which read: "Spending #SundayFunday with these ladies ... working on some new lies," followed by three wise monkey emojis, which sent fans into a frenzy over the possibility of a second series.

The post got in excess of 300,000 "likes". One wrote: "Definitely season 2 major hint" and another wrote: "I think season 2 might be in the making".

Reese was overjoyed at the reaction from viewers to the first series and put its success down to the fact that the show puts "women first".

Although she has previously hinted there could be another season of the hit programme, Reese insisted it would rely on novelist Liane Moriarty, who penned a book of the same name which the show is based on, developing the characters' narrative going forward.

At the time she said: "Nicole [Kidman] and I just spoke about it three days ago. We're talking to Liane Moriarty, who wrote the book, about how could these characters go on, what would happen? We definitely left it open-ended so there's a possibility there."

Moriarty previously revealed she has been thinking about different ideas of how she could assist the producers in making a sequel, but she doesn't want to pen another book.

She said: "I have started to think about ways this could continue. The producers have asked me to see if I can come up with some ideas. I wouldn't write a new book but perhaps a new story and then we'll see what happens ... I'm absolutely open to it because, once I started thinking, it was too much fun to see what I could do and to see these characters again. And there's definitely places you can go."

However, director and ex ecutive producer Jean-Marc Vallée is not keen on the idea of another series, but he would like to see Reese and Nicole, 49, reunite for something new.