Shadow and Bone: Netflix Quietly Developing Spinoff Series
Hit fantasy series Shadow and Bone returned to Netflix for its second season this week, continuing the story of author Leigh Bardugo's best-selling novel trilogy. The series has been a success for the streamer, so much so that the creative team is already developing a spinoff series with Netflix, in the hopes of launching a second show in the Grishaverse. Bardugo's popular Six of Crows duology could be getting its on TV adaptation, as long as the second season of Shadow and Bone performs well.
Shadow and Bone showrunner Eric Heisserer recently told EW that he's been developing a Six of Crows spinoff series for Netflix. The main characters of the Six of Crows story had major roles in the first season of Shadow and Bone, despite not playing a big part in the initial book trilogy. That sets the franchise up perfectly to have an entire show revolving around the fan-favorite Crows.
According to Heisserer, scripts for the Six of Crows show have already been written, and a good performance from Shadow and Bone Season 2 would likely see Netflix hand the spinoff a green light.
"One of the reasons, not all of them, that I got the privilege of working with Daegan Fryklind as co-showrunner in season 2 is that I was busy with the writers' room for Six of Crows. We are ready to launch that as its own story," Heisserer explained. "The eight-episode scripts are phenomenal and I'm really proud of my team for those."
The Six of Crows show would take place during the events of the Shadow and Bone Season 2 finale. That would likely allow the Crows characters to come back to the main show for Season 3, should it be renewed.
"There's a lot of work that's gone into the planning of this. The hope is then we get to act on that planning," said Heisserer. "But of course, it's about how well season 2 numbers do. And if so, then Daegan and I will continue to carry the mantle of both shows, which is also helpful because we have a lot of mouths to feed" – in terms of giving screen time to all the actors. "To be able to give them their own real estate so they have elbow room allows us to go deeper on some of these character arcs."
Shadow and Bone Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.