It’s 8/28, time for Manifest news. Exactly five years to the minute after Netflix announced it was reviving Manifest for a fourth and final season following its NBC cancellation, the streamer is resurrecting the series again, this time with a spinoff. Netflix has greenlighted Arrivals: A New Manifest Mystery, a sci-fi drama set in the universe of Manifest featuring a new cast of characters and storylines.

The offshoot comes from Manifest creator, executive producer and showrunner Jeff Rake and co-executive producers Margaret Easley and Laura Putney; the trio serves as co-creators, executive producers and showrunners of Arrivals, with Warner Bros. TV back as studio.

In Arrivals, when a mysterious plane crash-lands in Denver, the passengers emerge with no memory of who they are, where they came from, or why they’re here. A young social worker and a novice Homeland Security agent team up with the new arrivals in an attempt to stop a humanity-ending catastrophe, discovering along the way that they are all part of the very puzzle they’re trying to solve.

Rumors about Netflix exploring a Manifest spinoff started circulating soon after Season 4 Part 2 was released in June 2023. By end of 2024, the project was in development at the streamer. By end of 2025, the spinoff had opened a writers room. And earlier this month, the series had started meeting with directors.

Every step of the way, Netflix would not confirm the spinoff’s status — or even its existence — until this morning, on “828 Day,” when fans celebrate the series about the mystery of Flight 828, at 8:28 AM PT.

Netflix has been leaning heavily into that tradition the way it did with Stranger Things Day on Nov. 6, announcing the Season 4 order for Manifest on 8/28/2021 at 8:28 AM PT and releasing the season’s premiere date and trailer on 8/28/2022 at the same time.

With the Arrivals: A New Manifest Mystery title, the streamer seems to be taking a page off its playbook on another franchise, Knives Out, whose followups were tiled Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

It is unclear from the logline what exactly the spinoff’s connection to the original series would be, including whether it would keep the 828 flight number to fit into the existing annual Manifest celebration.

On Manifest, there was a time jump, not amnesia involved: after Montego Air Flight 828 landed safely in New York following a turbulent but routine flight that lasted a few hours for everybody onboard, they realized that for everyone else, five years had passed.

“When the idea for Manifest first crash-landed in my head, I never imagined where it would lead. What started as a wild concept became something much bigger – a story that connected with millions of people around the globe,” Rake said of the series starring Melissa Roxburgh and Josh Dallas. “And thanks to Netflix, we were able to finish the journey and give those fans the ending they deserved.”

“But the world of Manifest has more stories to tell. To now bring fans a brand-new mystery from that world is quite simply beyond my wildest dreams,” Rake said. “Arrivals co-creators and co-showrunners Laura Putney and Margaret Easley have been my trusted colleagues for over a decade. Their contribution to the Manifest mothership cannot be overstated. It was a no-brainer to make them my partners on this spinoff. Together we’ve set out to create something bold, surprising, deeply human, and full of the kind of big ideas that spark conversations long after the credits roll. We can’t wait for a whole new audience – and longtime Manifest fans – to discover Arrivals.”

The spinoff is designed to give Manifest fans more of what they want but also be assessible to new viewers.

Netflix stepped in to save the original series following its cancellation by NBC after three seasons when viewership for the first two seasons kept surging on the platform in the U.S.. Since H1 2023, when Netflix started its semi-annual data dumps, the four seasons of Manifest combined have amassed more than 130M views on the streamer. Manifest Season 4 spent 9 weeks in the Global Top 10 English TV list and hit #1 in over 90 countries, though the number of weeks comes with an asterisk as the season was split into two parts, a move that typically prolongs a series’ stay in the Top 10.

“We are thrilled to expand the Manifest universe with Arrivals, led by the original creative team of Jeff Rake, Margaret Easley, and Laura Putney,” said Jinny Howe, Netflix’s Head of Scripted Series, US & Canada. “Their return ensures the creative continuity essential to this franchise, allowing us to honor what made the original a phenomenon while introducing a fresh perspective for fans worldwide.”

Rake, Easley and Putney executive produce alongside the original series EPs Robert Zemeckis and Jack Rapke of Compari Entertainment; Len Goldstein of Tall Baby Productions and Jacqueline Levine. Warner Bros. Television is the studio.

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