An Outlander Spin-Off Series Could Be in the Works

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Outlander fans have come to know Lord John Grey over the past few seasons of the Starz time-traveling drama. Played by David Berry, Grey is first an adversary of Jamie Fraser's, and then later a friend.

But book readers know that Grey plays a larger role in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander universe. In fact, he is the main character in his own spin-off book series, the Lord John novels. And he could star in another television series set in the Outlander universe.

Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch has suggested that it might be possible.

“We think there’s a lot of opportunity in the Outlander universe to have story extensions or spinoffs or sequels. We continue to look at that with our partners at Sony,” he said at the TCAs in 2021.

And when asked specifically about a Lord John spinoff, he neither confirmed nor denied that it was something being considered by the network.

"We continue to talk on a regular basis about developing the story line around Outlander," he told told EW. "It’s something that we are aware of. We want to continue to serve that audience with what we think are the best stories."

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has hinted at the possibility before.

In 2018, a fan asked Gabaldon on Twitter, "any chance of a John Grey spin off?"

To which the author replied, "Who knows? Interest Has Been Expressed, is about all I could tell you."

That wasn't the first time someone has suggested the potential for a spin-off. Gabaldon once posted an article titled "6 Reasons Why We Need a Lord John Spinoff" on her Facebook page, along with her comment, "Hey, I'm game if David (and possibly Sam) is..."

Berry later shared a screenshot of her post on Instagram (in a post which has since been deleted) with the caption, "Wait... what? Of course I’m game! Whaddya say @samheughan ? Might even let you win a game of chess 😆"

More recently, Gabaldon shared that her preference would be a single 6-part season based on her book The Scottish Prisoner.

"I want THE SCOTTISH PRISONER to be its own one-season series....say, six episodes?" she wrote on Facebook in 2020.

Additionally, in a 2023 interview with TV Insider, she was asked about a potential Lord John TV series, and said: "Sure — it’s a matter of who wants to pay to have it done. They have floated that notion, and I’m all for it if they can get it off the ground. There’s a strong Lord John thread running through Book 10."

Back in 2016, producer Matt Roberts was also asked about a John Grey spin-off series.

"Oddly enough, we always joke about spinoffs, whether it's Lord John or Black Jack [Tobias Menzies] or this person or that person, because there is just so much material," he told the Hollywood Reporter.

"Diana [Gabaldon] gives us so much in the books that you can probably make 10 series and the fans would watch it all. We haven't really discussed it seriously if we could do that, but that would be something for Starz to order before we could start talking about it seriously. But we know there's a whole line of books that Diana wrote about just that one character, so it was great to have his introduction in my script."

At this point, nothing is even close to confirmed.

And recently show creator Ron Moore shared that conversations were taking place to expand the Outlander universe.

"Conversations are underway on both season seven and on a spinoff and I think we're going to have good news on both those fronts before too long so I feel very optimistic about it," Moore, who created the show, but no longer serves as showrunner shared in an interview about his new deal with Disney in 2021, though he did not hint at what the show might be about.

"I agree that I would've been happy to see it happen sooner than this but everything happens in its time. I think both those things are probably going to happen and hopefully we'll be able to say something about it before too long."

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