Umbrella Academy: The Movie Happening?
The Umbrella Academy could be getting the feature film treatment.
This article is more than 2 years old
The Umbrella Academy is such a massive hit for Netflix that it makes a lot of sense for the streaming service to keep upping the ante when it comes to a marquee show like this. With a huge cast, multiple story threads and arcs, plus amazing visuals, fans of the show are right to keep wanting more of the Hargreeves family in almost any way possible. And fans might get just that with recent rumors that Netflix is considering a full length, feature film of The Umbrella Academy.
This rumor of The Umbrella Academy getting a movie treatment is still very much in the *idea* phase but Netflix floating the idea probably means they’ve had significant discussions around the topic. And why not? This show is incredibly popular with Nielsen publishing some numbers back in September which were staggering. According to their metrics, which attempt to recreate streaming service numbers across different platforms independent of what the actual houses release, they said The Umbrella Academy hit 3 billion minutes of viewing which nearly tripled the next-closest show, HBO’s Shameless.
Besides just being one of Netflix’s biggest and most-recognizable performers on the service, The Umbrella Academy has also been a moderate hit with critics as well. It’s currently sitting at a 63 on Metacritic and an 82% on the Tomatometer with audience scores trending higher on both. Fans love the story and scope of a show that is a bit mind-bending around the action and shot beautifully.
The Umbrella Academy has already confirmed a third season with ten episodes coming to Netflix. Production is set to ramp up in February and all of the major parts of the cast are returning. That includes Elliot Page as Vanya, Tom Hopper as Luther and Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison, David Castaneda as Diego, and Robert Sheehan as Klause among many others. The massive cast of Hargreeves kids and their surrounding universe could be dialed in well for a movie, especially if such a story is set up over the course of this third season.
And for those worrying, Netflix signaling a movie for The Umbrella Academy wouldn’t necessarily mean the show was coming to an end. We are in a groundbreaking time for media on streaming services. Just look at how Marvel and Disney are operating these days. With so many initiatives around both shows and movies that exist in the same universe, there’s really no precedent for how creative platforms want to get. In the past, a movie meant maybe the end of a show, but that need not be the case anymore. It could simply be a companion piece to the larger story.
I suspect as The Umbrella Academy preps for its third season we hear more about movie ideas and how that would fit in with the show’s currency timeline. For now, just know the Hargreeves’ stories are in good hands with showrunner Steve Blackman saying he has a vision around how things will progress. There are plenty of stories to mine around one of the most interesting “families” you’ll ever see on screen.
