Futurama: is this time really the end?

Season 14 ends on Hulu and Disney+, but Matt Groening refuses to put an end to the adventures of Fry and his gang. And three XXL episodes are already in preparation.

Futurama is dead. Long live Futurama!

Season 14 of the animated series is ending (on Disney+ in France) and, for the moment, no new season is planned. But knowing the turbulent history of Matt Groening’s sci-fi comedy, it’s hard to believe that this time will really be the right one.

“They can put us in a coffin. They can nail the lid, but they can’t bury us. We will always be resurrected” Matt Groening already laughs in Variety. The creator is therefore not really worried about saying goodbye to Fry, Leela, Bender and the others.

Because Futurama is already in its sixth false ending. Launched on Fox in 1999, the series stopped for the first time in 2003, before being resurrected by Comedy Central in 2008. It bowed out again in 2013, then returned once again, this time on Hulu, in 2023. With each disappearance, the writers take care to prepare an episode that can function as a real conclusion.

The latest one also has a title that leaves no ambiguity: “Final Ending: The Last Conclusion”. But even Matt Groening admits that the team has now become accustomed to these repeated goodbyes:

“We have a lot more stories to tell. The animators, actors and writers would all like to do more. We’ll see. You never know.”

And above all, Futurama is not really disappearing.

Three special XXL episodes are currently in production, with a first scheduled for Christmas in 2027. These episodes will be longer and designed as real little epics. The first will notably bring back Robot Santa, the robotic and psychopathic Santa Claus from the series. The other two still remain secret, but Groening is already promising answers to certain questions left unanswered since the beginning of the series.

“The Hulu and Disney teams told us: ‘Give us big stories that are easy to promote’. We said OK. So these next three special episodes will be truly epic stories, perfect for promotion…”

Matt Groening believes that the very nature of the stories of Futurama or even The Simpsons (his other creation) “means that each episode could almost be a film… We integrate enough melodrama and adventures to justify a longer format. It’s nice to tell a big story while taking the time to let the plot breathe a little. Because one of the major challenges of animated series is the brevity of their duration.”

David hand!”