Summary
When it was announced last summer that The Last Kingdom would be ending with its fifth season, fans were outraged, fearing that they would never see an adaptation of the final three books in the series.
Fortunately, we’ve heard that a sequel film titled Seven Kings Must Die is in the works, serving as a “standalone” epilogue inspired by Bernard Cornwell’s novels War of the Wolf, Sword of Kings, and War Lord.
The Last Kingdom season 5 finale teased what we may anticipate from the feature-length special, but some fans may be questioning why the storey isn’t finishing with a complete sixth season instead.
Alexander Dreymon, the actor who plays Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and executive producer Nigel Marchant explained to RadioTimes.com how their present strategy came about.
Why is Season 5 of The Last Kingdom the final season?
The decision to conclude The Last Kingdom with season 5 was made when the show was started in development and a long-term plan for the overarching narrative was laid out.
Only nine The Last Kingdom books had been published at the time of the series’ premiere, with author Bernard Cornwell hard at work on the tenth as the television version was being filmed.
As a result, the show’s creative team had always intended for it to conclude after its fifth season, with Dreymon clarifying that it was not terminated, as some viewers had feared.
“That news release was slightly misinterpreted,” he admitted. “We had always intended for it to be only five seasons, so no one was surprised. When we first started, there were just ten volumes, and that was the arc that we had intended… I’m pleased with how things turned out.”
Marchant, the executive producer, stated that the conclusion was a “shared decision” made by production firm Carnival and distributor Netflix, which he believes occurred at the “perfect time.”
“You constantly want to be on top and improve season after season, and 10 hours is… there’s a lot of storey you tell within that that you have to be careful not to repeat,” he explained in July 2021.
“It’s always a challenge to figure out how to approach a battle differently. How can we ensure that the conflicts are told through emotion rather than just a bunch of people battling who you don’t care about? And how long can you carry on with those two motifs without reaching a climax?”
Marchant continued: “What we really wanted to do was finish [in a way] that everyone thought was satisfactory – which I hope we accomplished – and have nearly 50 episodes that felt like they had a beginning, middle, and end. I think it’s always preferable if you curate it, rather than just finishing and not finishing the storey.”
Is there going to be a sixth season of The Last Kingdom?
Carnival announced a sequel film titled Seven Kings Must Die a few months after it was confirmed that The Last Kingdom will end with season 5.
“When we started shooting the programme, Bernard Cornwell had written ten books, and we had constructed the show so that season 5 was always going to be the last season,” Dreymon stated at The Last Kingdom’s MCM London Comic-Con panel, which was chaired by RadioTimes.com writer David Craig.
“However, for quite some time now, we’ve been discussing the possibility of a short extension… since it didn’t feel like the end was quite yet. Then, because there has been such a strong demand from fans for an encore, we have chosen to collaborate with Netflix on a special that will be a’movie version’ of the show and will be shot next year [2022].”
At the time of writing, Seven Kings Must Die is in the midst of filming in Hungary, with several cast members from the television series reprising their roles.
Fans should not expect a full 10-episode season 6 of The Last Kingdom, as Marchant has described this sequel special as more of an epilogue to the main tale than the start of a whole new era.
“Season 5 seems like the end of the TV series, and the film will be much more standalone,” he explained. “It’ll be a special treat for fans of the TV show, but you can watch it even if you’ve never seen the show.”