Why is The Last Kingdom Season 6 replaced by Seven Kings Must Die?

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers. Proceed with caution if you have not watched the show/movie.

British historical drama, The Last Kingdom is based on Bernard Cornwell's novel The Saxon Stories. The series portrays the story of a warrior called Uhtred of Bebbanburg. The series is created by Stephen Butchard. After the first five seasons’ success, viewers have been waiting for The Last Kingdom Season 6.

The Last Kingdom Season 5 has covered the 9th and 10th series of the novel – 'The Warriors of the Storm' and 'The Flame Bearer.' It was the final chapter of the series that aired on Netflix 9 on March 2022. When it was announced the series ended with Season 5 fans were worried, they would miss out on the end of the story.

Last year Netflix announced that The Last Kingdom would be coming to an end with its fifth and final season. However, later Netflix decided to wrap up the story with a feature-length film titled ‘Seven Kings Must Die’ instead of The Last Kingdom Season 6. Fans will see their favorite Alexander Dreymon reprise his role as Uhtred of Bebbanburg for the two-hour film while other stars are also returning in The Last Kingdom special.

Dreymon has confirmed that filming has begun, posting a video from his first day on set in Budapest, Hungary back in January 2022.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Alexander Dreymon (@alexander.dreymon)

The film is planned to serve as a "standalone" epilogue inspired by the final novels in the series by Bernard Cornwell: War of the Wolf, Sword of Kings and War Lord.

Now many fans are wondering why the makers have planned a film instead of The Last Kingdom Season 6. Actor Alexander Dreymon and the series' executive producer Nigel Marchant revealed to Radio Times why they wrapped up after its fifth season.

"That press release was slightly misconstrued," Dreymon said. "We had always planned for it to be five seasons only so it came as a surprise to no one really. When we started off there were only 10 books and so that was the arc that we had planned out... I'm quite happy with the way that it went."

Executive producer Marchant said it was a "joint decision" between production company Carnival and distributor Netflix, which he feels came at the "right time".

"You always want to keep on top and improving season upon season and 10 hours is... it's a lot of story you tell within that and you have to be careful not to repeat,” Marchant explained.

"It's always a challenge: how do we do a battle differently? How do we make sure the battles are told through emotion and not just loads of people fighting that you don't care about? And how long can you keep going with those two themes without ever getting to a climax?"

Marchant added: "What we really wanted to do was finish [in a way] that everyone thought was satisfactory – which I hope we've done – and that we had nearly 50 episodes that felt that you had a beginning, middle and end. I think it's always nicer if you curate that, rather than it just finishes and you don't finish telling the story."

However, fans shouldn’t give up hopes, as The Last Kingdom Season 6 will be plated as more like an epilogue to the main story than the start of a whole new era. Marchant also said, "Season 5 does feel like the end of the TV series, and the movie will be much more standalone. It’ll be an extra treat for the fans of the TV series, but you could also watch it even if you’ve never seen the TV show."

Stay tuned to get more updates on Netflix TV series!

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