Netflix’s historical fiction series The Last Kingdom is set to follow its upcoming final season with a feature-length movie. The Last Kingdom is based on The Saxon Stories, a series of novels by Bernard Cornwell. It’s set in the year 866 at a time when tensions between the Saxons and the Vikings are rising. The series was originally produced by BBC and aired in 2015, but Netflix co-produced the second season and completely took over the creation of the show by season 3. It stars Alexander Dreymon as Uhtred, a Saxon who was raised by Vikings, alongside Eliza Butterworth, Arnas Fedaravicius, Millie Brady, Emily Cox, and Mark Rowley.
The ten-episode season 5 of The Last Kingdom is set to premiere on the streamer in 2022. This season will be adapting Warriors of the Storm and The Flame Bearer, the ninth and tenth novels in the series. The books detail Uhtred gearing up to finally reclaim the land of his hometown, Bebbanburg. In May of this year, Netflix announced that season 5 of The Last Kingdom will be the final season of the show.
Per Deadline, the final season of the series will not be the last time that fans hear from Uhtred. Alexander Dreymon is set to reprise the role in a two-hour film that will be titled Seven Kings Must Die. The film is set to begin production in Budapest early next year. Although cast members from the series will be returning, additional names have not yet been confirmed.
Seven Kings Must Die will be directed by Ed Bazalgette, who has had quite an interesting career. He started his career as the lead guitarist in the 80’s band The Vapors, who had a hit with the song “Turning Japanese,” which was featured on the soundtrack of Sixteen Candles. Now he’s a prolific director of British television, having directed everything from EastEnders and Doctor Who to Poldark and The Witcher season 2, which is premiering on Netflix on December 17. Of course, he’s also directed several episodes of The Last Kingdom in seasons 3 and 4.
While fans of the series will certainly be gratified that The Last Kingdom will live on in feature form, there is still plenty of material left to mine in the source novels. There are at least three books left in the series, and considering that it takes an entire season to cover two novels, a single movie couldn’t possibly cover everything. Of course, if the movie is popular enough, this might encourage Netflix to continue producing features and cover all the extant material until more is published.
Source: Deadline