Apple Fully Acquires Severance IP, Open to Season 4 With Possible Spinoffs

Apple has fully acquired the Severance IP from Fifth Season. The Emmy-winning series will now be moved under Apple Studios. Fifth Season is now transitioning to become an executive producer as Apple is open to moving forward with Season 4 ahead of production on a third season.

It been reported by Deadline that the deal was inked for just under $70 million USD (roughly $95 million CAD). Apple now has full autonomy over the Serverance IP as the studio looks forward to kickstarting production on a new season of the series, which is said to begin this summer.

However, that ultimately depends on whether series creator Dan Erickson and executive producer Ben Stiller. The report states that the season is still being written, with six scripts being finished and a handful left to complete. Thus, timing on production is tentative to the completion of this.

Severance is said to cost quite a pretty penny to produce. It’s reported to cost as much as $20 million USD (around $27 million CAD) per episode during Season 2. During that time, Fifth Season was handling many of those costs. This, of course, put a strain on the indie production house, despite advertising partnerships with State Farm. At one point, Fifth Season asked Apple TV for advances to help with payments and debated moving production from New York City to Canada for better tax rebates.

Now, with Apple at the helm, the burden of those costs will fall on Apple Studio, which has far deeper wallets. A fourth season of Severance is said to be locked in. Erickson and Stiller both envisioned the series running for four seasons, and it appears as though Apple is on board with seeing this through. It remains to be seen if this changes, though this will be up to Erickson and Stiller. However, it’s claimed that the two are open to the idea of expanding the universe in other ways, including a prequel, spinoffs and foreign versions (think Squid Games).