Succession season 4 script is 'almost done' – so when will the series return to HBO Max?

By the sounds of things, Succession fans won't have too long to wait for the return of television’s most dysfunctional family. 

The show's creator, Jesse Armstrong, spoke to reporters at yesterday's (May 8) BAFTA TV awards, where he accepted the award for Best Supporting Actor on behalf of Matthew Macfadyen, and revealed that the writing process on Succession season 4 is almost complete.

“We’re almost done with the writing for season 4, here in London, with the American writers coming over,” Armstrong said, adding that he’ll soon be sharing the script with the series’ cast for feedback, because “it’s useful, they’re smart and they think things about their character[s].”

The admission will come as music to the ears of fans troubled by the radio silence around the upcoming season of the Emmy award-winning HBO Max show. Succession was renewed for a fourth season back in October 2021, but no official casting, production or plot details have been shared in the months since. 

Leading man Brian Cox – who plays family boss Logan Roy in the series – did reveal, in an October interview with GQ, that producers were aiming to begin shooting in June 2022 – though that schedule was dependent on the writing process getting underway in January. 

Still, there’s every chance that Armstrong and his team did get to work on Succession’s season 4 script at the turn of the year, so production could conceivably take off in the next few months. Should that be the case, we’d expect the show to return some time between October and December 2022 – in other words, a year after the premiere of Succession season 3. 

You’ll find a comprehensive roundup of the upcoming season’s potential storylines in our dedicated hub, though given that HBO executive Francesca Orsi declared, in her October renewal announcement, that “Jesse Armstrong [continues] to surpass our wildest expectations” with each new entry in the series, it’s probably better to simply expect the unexpected from Succession season 4. 

Will season 4 be the show’s last? 

As for whether Succession’s fourth season will be its last, we’re refreshingly confident that it won’t be. HBO didn’t allude to further entries in its renewal press release back in October, though various admissions made by cast and crew in the months since have put our minds at ease. 

Most recently, when asked how long he intends to keep the show running at the BAFTA TV awards, creator Armstrong said: “I won’t answer that one precisely. I don’t think it should go on forever. But we’re still having fun at the moment.”

In the aforementioned GQ interview, series mainstay Brian Cox said he expects “possibly two more series, and then I think we're done.” The show's executive producer, Georgia Pritchett, also echoed that sentiment when speaking to The Times last year: “I think the maximum would be five seasons,” she said.

It would, of course, be in HBO's interest to squeeze as much mileage from Armstrong's fan-favorite series as possible – though there's only so much time that Logan Roy can spend seesawing over a successor to his media empire.

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