Everything We Know About ‘Shadow And Bone’ Season 3 On Netflix

Shadow and Bone season 2 spent a week on top of Netflix’s Top 10 charts, but it’s not a series that either had a pre-renewal ahead of season 2 for season 3, nor a lightning fast follow-up renewal. So no official news yet, but that’s not unusual when most of the time, it’s something like 4-6 weeks before Netflix issues a ruling one way or another.

But in terms of what we know? A few things.

First, the showrunner has said that not just season 3, but also a Six of Crows spin-off he’s writing depends on season 2’s performance. I do think that season 2 probably performed well enough to warrant a season 3, even by Netflix’s tough standards, as it would be pretty dumb to kill off yet another fantasy series before it has a chance to finish its main source material, and there’s only one more book in the central trilogy to go. Season 2 was also well-received by fans and critics, not that Netflix seems to care about that all that much. Still, the top 10 performance and overall hours viewed do seem solid, and Netflix should renew it, at least.

In terms of timing, we have:

• Shadow and Bone season 1 – April 2021
• Shadow and Bone season 2 – March 2023

So that’s more than a two year gap between the seasons. That could mean we don’t see season 3 until spring 2025 at this pace, though we have to keep in mind that 2021 was still the height of the pandemic when many TV productions were delayed. Now that things have normalized to some extent, I would probably guess the gap is shaved down to 1.5 years instead of two, meaning we could see Shadow and Bone season 3 in the holiday period of 2024.

The Six of Crows spin-off. I have to believe there was some encouragement from Netflix to pursue this, even if there isn’t a full greenlight for it yet, as it would be odd to just attempt to write one out of the blue completely. Here’s Heisserer talking to EW about it:

“A good chunk of what you see in the Crow’s side story” would be happening simultaneously with the events of Nikolai’s coronation, Heisserer confirms. He also clarifies that Suman’s Inej would return for the spin-off. “Obviously, we’re not gonna keep Inej out of that,” he says. “We’re gonna bring her back. So you understand then how many weeks it has been since she’s been on the high seas and then returning to Ketterdam.”

It’s possible that the universe could expand beyond season 3 and the Six of Crows as well, but I think at this point, we’re starting to get way ahead of ourselves. That said, it does seem like Shadow and Bone is one of the more successful fantasy series we’ve seen on Netflix in some time, especially with The Witcher universe dropping the ball lately by losing Henry Cavill after next season and its terrible Blood Origin spin-off. The crown may be Shadow and Bone’s to grab.

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