Fans of The Last Kingdom are currently impatient to dive into the 10-episode final season that dropped on Netflix today, but it seems that the company is already making plans for the story’s next big outing in live-action.
Based on Bernard Cornwell’s historical novel series, The Saxon Stories, the fifth and final season of The Last Kingdom continues to chronicle the story of Uhtred, son of Uhtred, as he struggles to reclaim his home country of Bebbanburg. We’ve yet to watch for ourselves how the warrior protagonist’s story ends in this conclusive run, but showrunner Nigel Merchant has recently put fan worries to rest by revealing that the upcoming spinoff film, Seven Kings Must Die, will be a standalone story and not a sequel.
Here’s what the executive producer said in a chat with Radio Times:
“In terms of season 5, we felt these two central strands of the story were coming together and it was the natural point to finish the TV series. Over the five seasons, there was a very definite beginning, middle, and end, so it was a group decision that we came to. However, we did know there were a few more books following on from where we get to at the end of season 5. So we did start to talk to Netflix fairly early about whether we could tell that end piece of the jigsaw so that it would feel complete.”
From what we gather, the current storyline will definitely come to an end when you reach the finale of season five, but the story will continue to adapt Cornwell’s novels, maybe all the way up to the thirteenth and final book, War Lord.
Netflix hasn’t announced the cast of Seven Kings Must Die, probably to avoid spoilers about who’ll make it out of this latest chapter alive, but hopefully, the list includes all the characters we’ve grown to know and love since the show’s conception in 2014.