Executive producer, Nigel Marchant and actor Alexander Dreymon who plays Uhtred of Bebbanburg brought back the anticipated period piece, The Last Kingdom on Netflix for its fifth run on March 9. Ever since its premiere fans have been hoping for a season 6. But to their surprise, they learned it is never going to happen. 

Instead, we are going to get a movie titled, Seven Kings Must Die. Let us understand why there will be no Season 6.

The Last Kingdom season 6 was never meant to be

Contrary to the popular belief that The Last Kingdom season 6 was canceled, Dreymon explained to Radio Times, “That press release was slightly misconstrued. We had always planned for it to be five seasons only so it came as a surprise to no one really.” 

Based on Bernard Cornwell’s novels, when the show went into development, only 10 books had been published. 

“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.” 

It was a joint decision between Netflix and production company Carnival to end the show to avoid repetition.

Merchant said, “You always want to keep on top and improve season upon season. And10 hours is… it’s a lot of stories you tell within that and you have to be careful not to repeat.”

“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.”

The movie: Seven Kings Must Die

The creators will nicely wrap it up with a movie that is more of a standalone epilogue. Merchant added, “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.” 

The fifth season is more like a goodbye to the characters and the story. The epilogue will be based on War of The Wolf, War Lord, and Sword of Kings. Even though fans won’t be getting s6, they can surely look forward to the grand movie.