A Series of Unfortunate Events – Copyright Netflix
A Series of Unfortunate Events will end after the third season which released on Netflix on January 1st, 2019. This will disappoint many that the series won’t be coming back for season 4 but as we’ll explain, it was always the plan for the show to last three seasons. However, that doesn’t mean that some of Lemony Snicket’s other work couldn’t now be adapted.
Let’s start off with a bit of context. A Series of Unfortunate Events as you probably know by now is based on a book series of the same name. It’s written by Daniel Handler who writes under the pen name of Lemony Snicket.
The books released between 1999 and 2006 and in total, there were 13 released. This is what the Netflix series has been adapting over the past several years. They’ve stuck to the order of the book series (unlike the movie) and even called the episodes what they’re called in the book format.
That leads us to why there won’t be a season 4. They’ve run out of books to cover.
Here’s how Netflix has split up the 13 books across its three seasons.
| Season 1 | The Bad Beginning | The Reptile Room | The Wide Window | The Miserable Mill |
| Season 2 | The Austere Academy | The Ersatz Elevator | The Vile Village | The Hostile Hospital |
| Season 3 | Slippery Slope | Grim Grotto | Penultimate Part | The End |
Note: all books were split into two episodes with the exception of “The End”
Couldn’t Netflix just write more episodes of A Series of Unfortunate Events?
That’s unlikely for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the story as told wraps up quite nicely with the finale episode which is actually called “The End”. In addition, Netflix is not the key decision maker in the process as it’s actually Paramount that is producing the series. To our knowledge, Paramount owns all movie and TV series rights to the show.
There are some books that Paramount and Netflix may choose to adapt, however. It’ll also depend on whether Netflix thinks a prequel series or another adaptation could pull in the figures that the main series has.
What other Lemony Snicket adaptations could they produce?
In his bibliography, there are multiple companion and canon books that sit outside of the main timeline.
For example, The Unauthorized Autobiography looks more into the life of Lemony Snicket and his childhood and his abduction by V.F.D. This would be great as a stand-alone movie.
Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography
You’ve also got several books that directly tie into some of the episodes in the series. Such as “The Dismal Dinner” that is set just before “The Bad Beginning”. Olaf could well reappear in this if they turned it into a one-off movie.
All The Wrong Questions
The most likely to get a visual adaptation could be the prequel book series called All The Wrong Questions. The four-part book series would work great as a limited series and like The Dismal Dinner, really flesh out the story before the main timeline begins.
These books mainly follow Lemony Snicket during his younger years as an apprentice.
The bibliography of Lemony Snicket goes even further with many other works written under his name.
Ultimately, this decision will come down to Netflix and Paramount regarding the future although if nothing else, we’d advise you to search out and buy the aforementioned books, they’re fantastic.
Would you like to see more A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix even if it was in a prequel form? Let us know in the comments.
