“Shadow and Bone” showrunner Eric Heisserer has already assembled a writers room to plan for a potential “Six of Crows” spinoff series, which he hopes could follow Season 2 of the Netflix fantasy show.
The first two seasons of “Shadow and Bone” adapt both the trilogy of the same name by Leigh Bardugo and the “Six of Crows” duology set in the same universe, coralling characters from both books together. Season 2 continues to adapt “Shadow and Bone,” but the finale sets the stage for a bigger plot from the Crows side of things.
“The story of ‘Six of Crows’ is a heist in the Ice Court, which is deep in Fjierda and it is around a sacred holiday of theirs called Hringkälla,” Heisserer told TheWrap. “The whole book of ‘Six of Crows’ is devoted to that, and what we’ve done in Season 2 was essentially set that up as the next crow story.”
Matthias (Calahan Skogman) and Nina’s (Danielle Galligan) storyline would play more of a role in the spinoff as well, as found in “Six of Crows.”
“You really haven’t had a chance to meet Nina and Matthias very much. You know that she has been pining for him and wants him out of Hellgate,” Heisserer said. “And the first part of that book is Kaz and the Crows breaking Matthias out of Hellgate because he ends up being their inside man to get into the Ice Court for the larger heist, so it’s a small heist that gives you a taste of the big one. We thought we had to properly set the stage for that in Season 2, and have him just roiling with emotions, most of them contradictory, so that when that reunion happens, we are on pins and needles to see how it goes. And if it can be corrected.”
A source with knowledge stresses that this “Six of Crows” spinoff is not near a greenlight stage, and plans could evolve.
When Season 2 of “Shadow and Bone” was greenlit, the writers room for the “Six of Crows” spinoff convened, and Heisserer said the writers put in a full 26 weeks on the scripts to make sure the events tied up with the end of Season 2.
The idea would be that “Six of Crows” and “Shadow and Bone” Season 3 could move forward at the same time, although “Shadow and Bone” has not yet been renewed for a third season and a decision likely won’t be made until at least a month of viewership numbers come in.
“The show is big enough now that they can live in their own space with more elbow room and the same thing with the mothership show — Alina and the Ravkan storyline and the other characters that can live there get more room to expand,” he said. “It allows us even to go back into the material that we didn’t get a chance to address in the second and third books, we can find ways to pull something out into season three. So that would be essentially the ‘Crows’ book as a pretty close translation.”
No spoilers, but “Shadow and Bone” Season 2 ends in a way that leaves more loose ends to be tied up for the flagship series. A Crows spinoff would allow these two worlds to exist at the same time in potentially a third and fourth season of “Shadow and Bone,” eventually coming back together to culminate in five total seasons.
“Ideally, the two groups would live as parallel shows that will follow on the same timeline trajectory with the occasional cameo appearance that you can dovetail in that allows audiences to know where in the timeline each of them is,” Heisserer said. “Ideally for a fifth season, but if not earlier, we would reunite both groups one more time in the back half to go after a common enemy, which I can’t talk to yet.”
Heisserer credits co-showrunner Daegan Fryklind with helming Season 2 alongside him, and she would join him in wherever the Grishaverse goes next. The “Six of Crows” book could make for an easy season of TV with plenty of cliffhangers.
“We see the show going on after this to follow Alina and Mal in particular. We don’t want to lose Jessie [Mei Lee] or Archie [Renaux], and there’s a possibility we don’t even lose Ben [Barnes]. So there’s a hope then that we get to return to those characters to see the next chapters in the show that will feel like undiscovered country for for book fans,” he said.
“Shadow and Bone” Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
