Is The Last Kingdom Cancelled? Why Is It Ending With Season 5?

YsmaelByYsmael Delicana Published on
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When season 5 of The Last Kingdom was announced, fans of the historical drama show were delighted because they would get to see their favorite hero once more. However, it has since been announced that The Last Kingdom will be ending after season 5, and that meant that fans had nothing to celebrate about. So, is The Last Kingdom canceled? Why is it ending with season 5?

The Last Kingdom is not canceled. Instead, the show’s creator and the team behind the series realized that season 5 was the best time to end The Last Kingdom because of the course of events happening in the show. However, the final books will be adapted in a two-hour movie to conclude the story.

As you can see, The Last Kingdom was never canceled but is merely just ending. This series is adapted from source materials that have a definite ending, and that means that the show was bound to end at some point. But don’t worry because there will be a movie coming out soon. With all that said, let’s look at what we know about why The Last Kingdom is ending.

Why Is The Last Kingdom Ending With The Season 5?

The Last Kingdom is one of the most popular series on Netflix and is also one of the longest-running shows on the streaming giant, as it has been around since 2015. It currently has five amazing seasons, as its first four seasons all saw their own fair share of success. And this show is very popular among different fans of the historical drama series.

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In that regard, while it may have been a delight for fans to know that The Last Kingdom was going to have a fifth season, the most recent update says that season 5 will be the show’s final season. It is rare for any Netflix original series to have more than three seasons, and five seems to be a really good number for The Last Kingdom. So, with that said, is The Last Kingdom canceled? 

Apparently, The Last Kingdom was never canceled. Even though it might be rare for a Netflix original to reach five seasons, there was never a reason for Netflix to cancel this show because of all of the success it has enjoyed ever since it premiered in 2015. In fact, season 4 saw itself within the top ten of the most-watched Netflix shows.

However, just because it wasn’t canceled, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t end. Season 5 was announced as the final season of The Last Kingdom because it simply is the last part of the story when you look at the flow of how the narrative was adapted to live-action ever since the very first season.

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Executive producer Nigel Marchant explained that there has already been a clear and established flow to the series because it has a definite beginning, middle, and end. Because of how the events of season 5 all come together to form the end of the series, it was only natural for the team behind The Last Kingdom to end the series at five seasons.

“So, it was a group decision that we came to,” said Merchant, who also discussed with Netflix about season 5 and where the series was headed.

In that regard, it is important to remember that the story of The Last Kingdom isn’t something that was simply created out of the blue by the show’s creator and its writers. If that had been the case, it could have been possible for them to extend the series as far back as they could.

However, considering that The Last Kingdom is a live-action adaptation of the Saxon Stories novels by Bernard Cornwell, there has to be a definite end to the series because the book series also has a definite ending.

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While it can still be a choice for the producers to extend the series as far as they can, the quality might end up suffering because of the lack of a clear source material that they can simply adapt to a live-action series.

Given all that, the producers and the other executives felt that it was only right for the series to end at season 5 because of how some of the things that happened at the end of the story begin to unfold in the events of the fifth season.

Is There A Possibility For The Last Kingdom Season 6?

While it might be true that The Last Kingdom will see its last run as a series in season 5, what people should know is that there won’t be a possibility of it having a sixth season because of the fact that the executives have already decided to end the series after five seasons. Allowing it to have a sixth season will only force them to stretch the story out to the point that it will no longer make sense.

Then again, even though there won’t be a sixth season, the good news is that there will be a two-hour movie entitled The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die. The film will conclude the entire story and is set to be released sometime in 2022 or 2023.

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The reason why there will be a film is that The Last Kingdom’s story doesn’t end in season 5. There are still parts of the books that were not portrayed in the final season, and that means that they will be shown in the movie.

Bernard Cromwell’s novels still have a story to tell even after the events of season 5. However, a sixth season will be too much because of how long a single season can be. As such, the executives behind The Last Kingdom decided that it was best for them to adapt the final portion of the book series in a two-hour movie that should be more than enough to give the story a proper conclusion.

Ysmael

Ysmael “Eng” Delicana is a writer based in Davao City, Philippines. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at Ateneo de Davao University before continuing to teach part-time at the same university. While teaching was a fun gig, being a geek and a writer seemed to be his calling. His expertise includes fantasy shows and movies, comic books, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and popular RPG video games. Ysmael also excels at learning new things and getting to know new topics that are interesting yet foreign to him, and that’s why he can also be called a jack of all trades. He also works as a part-time writer for books about sports. As an avid fan of fantasy TV shows, video games, and books, Ysmael is fond of watching, playing, and reading things related to fantasy, magic, and mystical creatures. However, he is also a huge fan of anime, as he spends a portion of his time watching shonen anime. As long as something is interesting and worth his time, Ysmael tends to devote his effort to it, as he has been great at geeking out about a certain topic. Ysmael’s writing style tends to be quite conversational in the sense that he likes speaking to the readers instead of making them feel like they are reading something tedious. He picked up this during his teaching years because he needed to find ways to simplify topics that tend to be foreign and complex to students. Ysmael also writes for Comic Basics.