Making a deal with the devil might be harder than it sounds. A new report suggests that a rumored sixth season of Lucifer, whcih seemed to be sailing toward becoming a reality with both Netflix and the series’ showrunners keen to do it, has hit a snag in the form of negotiating a deal with series lead Tom Ellis. Ellis, who has toplined the series both at Fox and at Netflix, has always been one of the series’ biggest boosters on- and off-camera. Still, it seems that whatever Warner Bros. is offering for the sixth season is not enough to excite the actor about returning one more time after the fifth season, which was designed as the series’ last.
Videos by ComicBook.com
TVLine, who broke the news, also suggest that Ellis already has a deal in place for a sixth season, but that he does not like the terms of that deal. It’s possible that the conflict there is simpler than it sounds: since season five was to be the end of the show, perhaps any negotiation about season six was undertaken with the idea that it was standard contract stuff, and not something likely to actually come back up. An anonymous source told TVLine that the studio has already offered improved terms more than once, and that they have run out of patience with the process.
“Everyone wants Tom to be happy, but there’s a limit, and it’s been reached,” the insider said. None of the parties involved had a comment on the record.
If true, this report flies in the face of reports in March that Ellis had finalized a new deal with Warner Bros. Television that would have allowed season six to go forward without issue.
There is no telling what, exactly, the sixth season would be about, or whether it would seriously change the planned season five finale to add more onto the end of the show.
With its fourth season rated as the most popular series on any streaming service last year and a cameo appearance on The CW’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover getting a whole new audience excited about the character, it’s been a good year for Lucifer Morningstar. The fifth season has been a wild ride, and seems like a hard thing for a prospective sixth season to top, but given that the Lucifer writers have had to write “the end” a few times now, it seems pretty likely they would be able to figure something out.
Shortly after Ellis made an appearance on “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” Fatman Beyond host Marc Bernardin took to social media to pitch Warner Bros. on a miniseries teaming Lucifer with John Constantine (Matt Ryan) — and both Ryan and Lucifer executive producer Joe Henderson are up for it. The pair shared a scene in “Crisis,” in which it was implied that there was some complicated backstory that involved Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt) and was maybe a little contentious. Bernardin’s pitch would be a road trip story, taking the pair from coast to coast.
“The Lucifer cameo just exceeded my wildest expectations because I think both Matt and Tom fed off of each other in a way that none of us were expecting,” the event’s showrunner told ComicBook.com. “Lauren Certo wrote that scene, and she did such a great job on the page — and I loved that scene when I read that, but seeing the the chemistry that Tom and Matt have together and the way they riff off from each other? That was a wonderful surprise.”
The first four seasons of Lucifer are currently available on Netflix, with a fifth (and not-so-final?) season planned for later this year.
