Apple TV+ renews hit sci-fi drama 'For All Mankind' for Season 5, announces new spinoff series 'Star City'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Apple TV+ has confirmed 'For All Mankind' Season 5 along with a new spinoff series, 'Star City'. 'For All Mankind', which aired first in 2019, explores an alternate reality where the Soviet Union reached the moon before the United States, altering the course of history.
Each season of the show leaps through time, with Season 4 concluding in 2012. The main cast, including Joel Kinnaman and Shantel VanSanten, has remained relatively consistent.
According to a press release by AppleTV+, the creators Ronald D Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi are joining forces for the spinoff titled 'Star City.'
The spinoff, 'Star City,' will revisit the pivotal moment when the Soviet Union achieved a lunar landing, delving into the alternate history of the Space Race through the lens of those within the Iron Curtain.
Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi will helm the spinoff as showrunners.
What will be the plot of 'Star City'?
In 'Star City,' viewers will dive into an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union achieves the historic feat of lunar landing before any other nation.
This thrilling and suspenseful series will offer insight into the world of cosmonauts, engineers, and intelligence officers operating within the Soviet space program.
The official synopsis reads, "Star City is a propulsive paranoid thriller that takes us back to the key moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race - when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon."
The synopsis further continues, "But this time, we explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain, showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers, and the intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space program, and the risks they all took to propel humanity forward."
'Star City' will kick off AppleTV+'s first homegrown television franchise
It's common for a popular streaming show to spawn spinoffs like movies or other series. For instance, Netflix's 'The Witcher' has both an animated prequel movie called 'Nightmare of the Wolf' and a live-action prequel series titled 'Blood Origin.'
Many streaming platforms are creating interconnected universes, like Paramount+'s continuation of 'Star Trek'. 'The Boys,' adapted from the comic book series, has expanded into several spinoffs.
These include the animated series 'Diabolical,' the live-action 'Gen V,' and the upcoming 'The Boys: Mexico.'
However, this news about 'For All Mankind' marks a first for Apple TV+.
Apple TV+ has experience developing shows based on well-known intellectual properties (IP).
They've successfully adapted literary works such as 'The Mosquito Coast,' rebooted series like 'Amazing Stories,' and created franchise spinoffs like 'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,' part of the Legendary Monsterverse that includes Godzilla and King Kong.
Now, with the introduction of a spinoff alongside a new season delving into the aftermath of 'For All Mankind' Season 4, Apple is launching its inaugural television franchise.
It's fitting that 'For All Mankind' spearheads this endeavor, considering it's one of the earliest and longest-running shows on the platform.
It's been a flagship program for Apple TV+, making it a logical choice to lead their inaugural major franchise endeavor.
Whether the spinoff materializes and succeeds remains to be seen. However, if it does, it could lay the groundwork for additional spinoffs from Apple's beloved original series such as 'Severance,' 'Ted Lasso,' 'Mythic Quest,' and 'The Morning Show.'
'For All Mankind' Season 4 trailer