Wait, Could A This Is Us Movie Really Happen?

With This Is Us: The Final Season five episodes in, the story of the Pearsons is coming to an end. According to creator Dan Fogelman, this has been the plan from the beginning; though the series was not planned beat for beat, Season 6 was always expected to be endgame. But now, facing the end of the series, Fogelman may be considering a way to keep things going. So, will a This Is Us movie happen? When asked, the showrunner didn't say no.

At the This Is Us Television Critics Association press tour panel on Feb. 11, Fogelman was peppered with questions about the series’ final episodes. Reporters asked everything from whether Kevin returning to a reboot of The Manny was planned from the start (no, but they'd like to claim it was) to how many more scenes are set in the flash-forward future. The answer to the latter is quite a few, apparently, with broad hints of an entire episode set either in 2034 and Rebecca's passing or 2050's Adult Jack timeline.

But the big question was, how did it feel for the series to be coming to an end? "I think that's something we're all grappling right now," Fogelman told the reporters. "It's getting a little more real right now. At the beginning of the season, we'd get a lot of questions about it, but I don't think it felt very real. And all of a sudden, now, I'm writing the final scripts. We're heading there rapidly."

Fogelman then admitted he was open to the idea of revisiting the Pearsons in a movie a few years down the line, not unlike Downton Abbey did.

"I say no to nothing," he said when asked by a reporter. "I'm very aware that a midlife crisis is right around the corner for me and that whatever I do next, I'm going to hate in comparison to this show and these actors. So I say no to nothing."

However, he did point out that (like Downton) rounding up the extensive cast might be a serious challenge. "I suspect when I want to do something again for This Is Us with these guys, they'll all be very busy and winning awards and Emmys and Oscars," Fogelman joked. "But sure," he continued. "If we can figure out a movie down the road, I'd love to get back together with these guys and do it. I don't know what that would be. By the end of this season, I think we'll have told the complete story, so I'm not sure. It's like if you're doing the movie of like what would have happened if Jack survived the fire or something, but I don't know..."

Justin Hartley, who plays Kevin, then jumped in: "Well, there's your movie. You just wrote it!" Fogelman laughed, but then he looked down at his phone and said, "The president of NBC is literally texting me right now: ‘Yes to the movie.’"

So perhaps this won't be the end of the Pearsons after all.

This Is Us: The Final Season returns with Episode 6 on Tuesday, Feb 22, 2022, at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.