When it was announced that Succession would be ending with its fourth season, fans of the show were shocked.
The HBO show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, has offered a glimmer of hope that it won’t be the end, though, because when he announced that Succession would be finishing its run, he said that there was room for spinoffs.
Newsweek spoke with cast members Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong, Nicholas Braun, J. Smith-Cameron, and Alan Ruck about their thoughts on this.
Succession Season 3 ended on a dramatic note, with siblings Kendall (Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Culkin) deciding to veto their father Logan’s (Cox) sale of Waystar RoyCo to Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård). But, their plans were thwarted when Shiv’s husband Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) revealed the plot to Logan.
In Season 4, the trio is united against their father and has a brand new venture titled The Hundred that they plan to launch as a counter to his media empire. Logan, meanwhile, is working towards closing the deal for Waystar RoyCo while his eldest son Connor (Ruck) continues his bid for the presidency.
Cox said that the way in which the show ends meant that there was only one character he felt suited a spinoff: Greg Hirsch (Braun). Greg is the loveable yet dim-witted cousin of the Roy siblings who has, over the course of the past three seasons, managed to secure a powerful position at Waystar RoyCo through his closeness to Tom and his willingness to follow Logan, regardless of the cost .
“I think Jesse said [he’s open to spinoffs] to reassure people that perhaps it was a possibility of a re-emerging,” the actor said. “I don’t really see the spinoff, in a way, I can’t see it. Not with the family. The only character I think could be in a spinoff is Greg, possibly.
“Greg could be in a spinoff, a whole series on idiocy [and] his ridiculousness, so that’s the only way I could see a spinoff happening.
“I can’t see it for the boys [Kendall, Roman, or Connor], and I can’t see it for Siobhan, for Sarah. I can’t see it, but I could see it with Greg, with Nick, I think it’s feasible.”
Ruck was of a similar mind to Cox, adding: “If Jesse Armstrong or any of our writers called up and said, ‘I’ve got this idea, would you be interested?’ I would show up the next day with bells on, but I’m not sure what spinoff would be [possible]. The only one I can think of that would really work would be Tom and Greg together, the adventures of Tom and Greg.”
When asked about his co-stars’ thoughts on his character getting a spinoff, Braun was all for it and joked that the show had already been commissioned.
He said: “Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it, sign me up. I’ll talk to Jesse later today, I’ll talk to HBO and we’ll get it, we’ll get something together.
“We’ll probably shoot a pilot in a few months and then the show would probably come out in about a year? So yeah, look out for that, it’s going to be cool. The trailer will drop, I think, in about six months. The storyline is really fun.”
Braun later joked that his proposed Greg spinoff was “gonna be good” and he quipped: “We actually just got picked up for Season 2 just while we were talking, so that’s awesome!”
Aside from Greg, another character that has the potential to get their own story told is Logan’s advisor Gerri Kellman (Smith-Cameron).
Smith-Cameron enthusiastically declared that she was definitely interested in Gerri being given her time to shine. She said: “I can see how the storyline of the family has to kind of come to a climax, but the world of Succession is so relevant right now, globally.
“Nationalism and conservativism, and billionaires and corporations taking away freedoms, it’s just like a lead blanket that feels like it’s covering the globe right now and it’s panicky, that’s my opinion.
“So I think there’d be a very keen interest in seeing it, but what’s so devilishly clever about Succession is unapologetically they’re just inside the bad people’s brains, and they don’t apologize for them and they don’t make them secretly good.
“It’s really such a clever show, I don’t know of anyone that’s like it, and somehow it’s still enjoyable to root for these people who are all amoral. But they just want what they want so bad, it’s interesting to see them. “
The actor added: “That’s what I think is the secret to characters—their appetite for things. You really like characters that are trying for something even if they’re anti-heroes? So, yes, I think the spinoff would be hugely successful , Jesse Armstrong, if you’re listening.”
Strong, meanwhile, said that he wouldn’t want to return to the franchise should an opportunity for a spinoff arise, but he “wouldn’t turn [his] nose up at anything Jesse Armstrong was interested in doing so [he] could be proven wrong.”
When it was announced that Succession would be ending with its fourth season, fans of the show were shocked.
