Next Spartacus Season, War of the Damned, Will End the Series

He’s defeated Batiatus and Glaber, but it turns out that the end is almost here for Spartacus. Yes, the next season of the hit Starz series, which we can now reveal will be called Spartacus: War of the Damned, will be the final one, as the show comes to an end after four years, three “regular” seasons and one additional prequel season.

It’s a surprising move, given how meaningful Spartacus has been for Starz, where it is easily their biggest hit and has been crucial in getting the cable channel established as a destination for original series. I spoke to Spartacus’ executive producer and showrunner, Steven S. DeKnight, for an exclusive chat about the decision to end the series after a relatively short run, why the time was right and what we might expect when War of the Damned begins its ten episodes in January 2013.

IGN TV: So let's just start with the first and foremost question: Why end the show right now?

Steven DeKnight: Starz always does the unexpected. This show has been challenged, to say the least, in many, many ways. We’ve faced many difficulties and tragedies on the show. My original plan was to attack the show in a five- to seven-season arc. Once we got into it and after Andy’s passing and looking at the historical story of Spartacus, we came to the decision to basically end on a high note. We certainly could have continued for a few more seasons and stretched it out, but we really wanted to end high and not feel like we were treading water - and really just condense the rest of the history into one amazing ten-episode, badass final season. You know, the whole show was a huge risk from the start for Starz, and it was another huge risk when I decided to try to keep the show going after Andy’s passing. Any normal studio would have just cancelled the show at that point and not risk the financial downside of it not working. But Starz, thankfully, really stuck by the show, and they really wanted it to be told all the way to the end. They didn’t want to cheat the viewers and just suddenly pull the plug. So they gave us this opportunity to wrap up the story, and we’re certainly taking that opportunity and running with it. This is by far the biggest season we’ve ever attempted.

Liam McIntyre in
Spartacus: War of the Damned

IGN: I have to ask – Did Starz simply tell you, “Next year is your last,” or was there a lot of conversation about it and about what would work best for the story?

DeKnight: There was a lot of conversation. We knew towards the end of making the last season - we were 90 percent sure that we would be wrapping it up. And then there were a lot of questions and back and forth about do we do ten episodes, do we do 12, do we do 16, do we do 20? Ultimately, when we looked at it from all angles both financially and creatively, we decided, “Let’s do ten. Let’s take history, take the best parts of the story and really just try to end this as strong as possible.”

IGN: I think it will surprise a lot of people because it has become Starz’s flagship show and is their biggest success. After last season, I’d personally figured you’d probably go at least two more years.

DeKnight: Yeah, I think the last thing Starz would want to do is, because it’s a success, drag it out and then have it end when it’s on the downslide; when people start to get tired of it and less interested and we start repeating ourselves. That would just be a horrible way to go out. But the thing about this show is, I think it is an incredibly risky thing to end it now. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s a good way to go or a bad way to go. But with Starz, they’ve taken such a big risk on every season. They took a huge risk greenlighting the show, and then once Andy [Whitfield] fell ill, they took a gigantic risk doing the prequel.

And it’s funny with this show... After each season, it seems like what I read a lot on the message boards is people ringing our death knell. When they found out Andy was sick and we were doing a prequel, everybody hated the idea of a prequel. “What are they doing? It will never work.” Then the prequel was a success. And then, unfortunately, when Andy passed away we had to recast Spartacus. Everybody was saying it would never work. And then last season we had even bigger numbers than the previous two seasons. So this show had been one constant risk, every single season. And Starz is throwing the dice one more time. It’s a little unprecedented -- in fact, I think it’s very unprecedented to take your one big hit show on your network and end it earlier than people expect.

IGN: This title of this new season, War of the Damned, certainly doesn’t seem to be very optimistic for either side in this battle.

DeKnight: No! [Laughs]

IGN: Should we extrapolate from that?

DeKnight: You certainly can. I hatched this “brilliant” graphic novel idea of, “Let’s subtitle each season,” instead of Season 1, 2, 3… “We’ll have different subtitles!” Which was the best/worst idea I’ve ever had in my life. Because after Blood and Sand -- which was something I just threw out in a meeting and it just kind of stuck, and we rolled with it until the end -- each of the next seasons, it been very difficult to get everybody to agree on one title. Months and months and months we’ve gone back and forth. This one was eventually… It was kind of the same process, but it really stuck. We wanted something that was epic, but also, quite frankly, as you point out, it also gives that uneasy sense of doom. It is the War of the Damned. And like you say, it is very much about both sides, the Roman side and the rebel side.

One of the things I really wanted to explore this season was the cost of war. Not just physically and financially, but the cost of war emotionally. And both sides take serious, serious damage this season. The flip side of that is I wanted to play with what really is victory and what really is defeat. Can you win and still be defeated? Which is something I think in the Kirk Douglas version of Spartacus that they did so well - that even when Spartacus is up on the cross dying, there’s the ray of hope with his wife and with his newborn son, who will live a free man. But that’s one of the big challenges of this season is everybody kinda-sorta knows how the story ends -- although most people think that Spartacus was crucified, which historically isn’t quite accurate -- but it’s how do we get there? And once we do get there, how do we end the season so that there is some of form of an uplifting message? I think it would be a mistake to just have it be, “Aaaand Spartacus and all of his people were murdered, and the Romans won!” after following the story for four years.

Continue to Page 2 to learn much more about what to expect in the final season of Spartacus, including info on the new villains in War of the Damned. Plus, is a spinoff possible?

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/04/next-spartacus-season-war-of-the-damned-will-end-the-series