Lucifer Season 6 In Jeopardy Due to Contract Dispute

All is not well over in hell…and Netflix

TV Line reports that Lucifer season 6 may not move forward due to a pay dispute between star Tom Ellis and studio Warner Bros. TV. 

Ellis is reportedly still under contract for a sixth season of the show but both he and Warner Bros. have engaged in talks about a pay raise. Now those talks have broken down with one TV Line source reporting ominously “Everyone wants Tom to be happy. But there’s a limit, and it’s been reached.” Contract and pay disputes sometimes happen behind closed doors in the television industry. But this one has reached a boiling point that threatens Lucifer’s future. 

Suffice it to say, the star of a show that bears his character’s name is likely to have a lot of leverage in contract negotiations. The issue for Ellis, and Lucifer fans at large, however, is that Warner Bros. may just decide this is all more trouble than it’s worth and move on from the show altogether. 

Recall that a Lucifer season 6 has never even officially confirmed. Early reports suggested that a sixth season (the show’s second at Netflix) was all but a guarantee, with only some “i’s” to be dotted and some “t’s” to be crossed. Now those i’s and t’s have proven to be tougher to deal with than previously realized. The studio reportedly has deals with showrunners Ildy Modrovich and Joe Henderson for season 6 already along with deals for the supporting cast, pending a deal with Ellis. 

Lucifer was canceled in 2018 following four seasons at Fox. Fans then engaged in an ambitious and #SaveLucifer campaign online, eventually leading to Netflix picking up the show for fifth season. Lucifer season 5 was presumed to be the last go-around for the show until rumblings began that a sixth season was possible. 

Lucifer was created by  Tom Kapinos (Californication, Dawson’s Creek) and is an adaptation of the Lucifer Morningstar character from Neil Gaiman’s classic DC/Vertigo comic series, The Sandman. Like in the comics, the show’s title character is a debonair Los Angeles club owner and darkly romantic antihero. The series follows Lucifer as he decides to use his talents to help an LAPD Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) solve crimes. In latter seasons the show focused more on the Biblical implications of the King of Hell abandoning his post. 

Lucifer season 5 (which could be the show’s final season or penultimate season, depending on how things shake out) does not yet have a release date. After initially handing out a 10-episode order, Netflix bumped the total up to 16 episodes.