The 100 Prequel Spinoff in Development at The CW

Fans of The CW‘s post-apocalyptic series The 100 were probably disappointed to learn that the series was coming to a close after its seventh season. However, it looks like the world of The 100 is going to continue on past 2020, as long as everything goes according to plan. Like a few other existing shows on The CW, The 100 has a spinoff series in development, with a backdoor pilot on the way in its upcoming final season.

News broke on Thursday that The CW was working on a prequel spinoff of The 100 that will take place nearly a century before the main series. Creator Jason Rothenberg will write and executive produce the new series. Leslie Morgenstein Gina Girolamo will also executive produce.

This new series, which doesn’t yet have a title, is set to take place 97 years before the beginning of The 100, likely meaning that no characters from The 100 will be appearing. The spinoff is going to show the original apocalypse that sent the human race into space in the first place.

If you recall, the original series began with a group of 100 young people being sent down to Earth as a punishment for crimes committed on the space station where everyone lived. It was believed that the planet might once again be inhabitable following an event that wiped out the majority of civilization. This new series is all about that event.

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.”

Are you looking forward to The 100‘s final season? What do you think about this proposed spinoff series? Let us know in the comments!