The 100 Final Season Premiere Date Announced

The CW is bringing another one of its longer-running titles to an end this year, as The 100 will finish up its run this summer at the conclusion of its seventh season. There is a prequel series to The 100 in the works at the network, but the mainline series is saying goodbye after seven years, and fans now know exactly when the final installment will begin. The CW announced on Wednesday that the upcoming seventh season of The 100 will premiere on Wednesday, May 20th at 8 pm.

This will be the third substantial CW title to say goodbye this year. Arrow concluded its eight-season run on January 28th, while Supernatural, the longest-running show on the network, will bow out in May after 15 seasons on the air.

The 100 creator Jason Rothenberg is hoping that the final season of the series isn't the last you'll see of the franchise's expansive universe. Along with executive producers Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo, Rothenberg is currently developing a prequel to The 100 that will take place 97 years before the events of the original series. Fans are hopeful that the prequel will be picked up by The CW after the pilot is completed, but the network hasn't revealed any decisions about the series at this time.

The story of The 100 has grown much more intricate and complicated over the past seven seasons, though Rothenberg believes that those young characters are still at the core of what makes the series work today.

"They were forced to grow up very quickly" in season one, Rothenberg told ComicBook.com earlier this year. "A very cool fact about our new story in season six is, it does have strong echoes to season one. In season one, the 100 were kids, landing on a planet that was mysterious and unknown to them, and they needed to figure out how to survive on it. In many ways, that's the story here. They're the same people, obviously six years plus older now. Not that much older, but six to 10 years older and they're landing on another mysterious world that they know nothing about and they're gonna have to figure out how to survive on...of course, now they're bringing with them all of the emotional baggage and lessons and things they've done. So it's really, I think, kind of a fascinating thing to see when looking at it through the lens of season one. How different they are now, how sort of different they are as they encounter the challenges and threats and various sort of mysteries of this new world."

How do you think The 100 will end? Are you looking forward to the final season? Let us know in the comments!