It’s official: Netflix’s Manifest will return for a fourth season. The announcement was made at 8.28 a.m. on August 28, 2021, a homage to the series’ pivotal Flight 828, a plane that returns to Jamaica with its passengers five years after flying off.
Almost the whole ensemble, including Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh, will return for the show’s final season (or two). The renewal of Manifest in August 2021 constituted a remarkable 180-degree turn for Netflix, which had first declined to renew the series, as did the show’s originator NBC—but both were compelled to rethink when Manifest’s entry to Netflix shattered U.S. streaming records.
“There is something very meta about the show’s death and rebirth, given that that’s the story of the series itself,” Jeff Rake told in an interview
In an interview having converation with Entertainment Weekly, creator Jeff Rake remarked. He’s talking about the show’s titular “manifest” of characters, who were all thought to be dead for years when their plane landed in New York City. The show follows Dallas and Roxburgh, a brother and sister combination trying to put the pieces together and figure out what happened to them.
Manifest was renewed by Netflix two months after the first and second seasons of the NBC show were picked up by the streaming service. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show was seen by 25 million Netflix accounts in the United States and Canada in its first month.
Manifest continued to dominate Netflix’s statistics even after it dropped out of the top spot: In August of 2021, Nielson revealed that Manifest had surpassed its streaming-ratings records for six weeks in a row, averaging a billion views per week. By September, Manifest had become only the third show in Netflix history to spend 100 days in the Top 10—ever.
When will the fourth season of Manifest be released?
Probably in the winter of 2022. Matt Long, who plays Zeke, responded to a fan on Twitter by saying that the fourth season of Manifest would most likely not premiere until the “fall/winter” of 2022. “I’m hearing November,” Rake replied in response to Stephen King’s question concerning the return of Manifest.
For quite some Time star Ginnifer Goodwin, who also happens to be Josh Dallas’ wife, revealed that filming for Manifest was set to complete at the end of the 2022.
“I’m ready for my husband to come home from NYC. He’ll wrap the series in late 2022, and we are craving a vacation,”
she stated Note that Goodwin used the word “series” rather than “season,” implying that the fourth series’ “parts” will be shot throughout 2022 and completed by the end of the year.
But remember how Rake said there would be a “batch” of fresh episodes instead than a whole season? There’s a rationale for his phrasing: the show’s 20 episodes will most likely not all premiere simultaneously. So, if Manifest publishes eight episodes in its next “batch” and twelve in the following “batch”—likely presented as Season Four, Part One and Season Four, Part Two, Lucifer-style—the first “batch,” or “part one,” might arrive as early as mid-2022.
TV Line posted a photo of the fourth season’s opening script:
What could happen in season 4 of Manifest?
Quite a bit, to be honest. To attain a satisfying finish, creator Rake will have to cram his three planned seasons’ worth of plot into those 20 episodes.
“The endgame won’t change at all… I am confident that 20 episodes gives me enough time to tell the entirety of the story as I always intended to.”
“Things are gonna be a little….different,”
Josh Dallas, who plays Ben, wrote on Twitter alongside a snap of his new beard. Which makes sense, given that his character has recently suffered a…major setback. (WARNING: SPOILERS!) As one admirer put it:
“Love the beard, but my heart is breaking for Ben,” she says.
Dallas responded with the following:
“To be honest… he’s not in a great place.”
Rake commented on what to expect from Ben in season four after the events of the season three finale in an interview with TV Insider.
“A Season 4 of Manifest for Ben is absolutely centered around processing, digesting, coming to emotional terms with such an unspeakable loss, and then trying to find a way to seek vengeance, to kind of justify the act in terms of finding some meaning out of it.”
He also posted a behind-the-scenes photo of a funeral, captioned, “Brace yourselves.”
Who’s in the fourth season of Manifest’s cast?
The cast was no longer contractually tied to the show beyond June 2021, according to Deadline’s Andreeva. Except for the character who died after season three and the character who…unexpectedly matured (no spoilers! ), most of the actors signed on in September after the renewal. Daryl Edwards, who plays Vance, has also been promoted to series regular.
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Meanwhile, the older actor who appeared at the end of season three is filling in for the role who abruptly aged. It’s a shame, because the two actors who aren’t returning were crucial to the success of the first three seasons of Manifest—and, according to Andreeva, the remaining cast will receive “significant pay rises” for the fourth season.
According to What’s on Netflix, the fourth season will introduce a few new characters, but just minor ones. Kyle Boyd, who was a passenger on Flight 828 with the important characters we know and love, and two new characters named Tela and June, will be introduced.
The official Manifest account tweeted a snapshot of Matt Long, who plays Zeke, on set with Roxburgh as a Valentine’s Day treat:
“Valentine’s Day treat from us to you”.
Check behind the scenes look at the upcoming season of Manifest, which will be available on Netflix soon.
Long has also posted several teaser images on Instagram:
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View this post on Instagram
What happened after the cancellation of Manifest?
NBC and Netflix had declined to renew Manifest when it became popular in the summer of 2021. However, the show and its rabid fans persisted, with millions of minutes watched on Netflix each week.
“Before we even had a chance to lift a finger to figure out if we need a PR campaign to help save us, the fans rose up and created this campaign and spread the word—which was incredibly rewarding and heartening,”
The Hollywood Reporter quoted Rake as saying.
“Do you hear me, people of Netflix or Hulu or literally any powers that be? MAKE IT HAPPEN,”
BuzzFeed’s Lauren Yapalater wrote.
“Why would Netflix pass up saving what is a show with clearly a massively engaged fanbase?”
Forbes’ Paul Tassi wondered. A petition to bring Manifest back received over 100,000 signatures. For example, Kourtney Kardashian and Demi Lovato have said that they’ve been binge-watching the show since it debuted on Netflix. Stephen King joined in the fun, tweeting “#SaveManifest.”
But probably the biggest shout came from Netflix’s Top 10, a list of the most popular shows on the streaming service, where Manifest remained at the top for months after it was cancelled.
“What scored Manifest a critical fourth and final season were those top-secret numbers created by viewers bingeing the show’s first two seasons,” the Hollywood Reporter said.
Netflix chose to pursue the project aggressively and ultimately beat bid NBC, according to Matthew Belloni’s
“What I’m Hearing” email.
“It soon became clear there was just a more compelling case to be made moving the show over to Netflix and starting and ending with the legions of new fans that had emerged in the Netflix universe.” Rake told THR.
