Here's What We Know About The Possibility Of 'Ozark' Season 4
Ozark is one of those sneak-attack shows from Netflix. It's the sort of show where viewers hear critics vaguely talk without really knowing what it's about. But once you start watching this American crime drama set in Osage Beach, Missouri, i turns out to be a Breaking Bad-type series where you can't look away. With Season 3's March 27 debut, fans are wild to know, will there be an Ozark Season 4? It turns out series' star Jason Bateman is also asking that same question.
Ozark started during Netflix's old model of greenlighting new seasons before the new ones are released. But the later seasons have arrived after the adoption of the new method, where shows have to wait several months to find out if there will be more. That's part of the reason why Season 1 and 2 were released barely a year apart, while Season 3 took almost two years. (Season 2 arrived in August of 2018, and the renewal for Season 3 came in October of that year.)
Bateman plays patriarch Martin "Marty" Byrde, whose job is to launder money for a Mexican drug cartel. He stars alongside Laura Linney, who plays his wife Wendy, a former PR person who now lobbies for her husband's planned casinos to help cover his illegal business.
In speaking to Collider, he admits he doesn't know if Netflix will be handing them a fourth season or not, but he estimates the overarching plot of the show is probably around the halfway point.
There is not an official pickup for Season 4. We’re all operating under the hope it will happen. It’s Netflix’s norm to wait for a show to premiere and collect the data for weeks two, three, and four and see if there’s an audience there to justify an additional season. So, I guess we’re in that period right now. But, I know [showrunner] Chris Mundy and his team are hard at work figuring out what that fourth season would be if that official pick-up lands.
Even if there is a Season 4 pick up, Bateman doesn't believe the show will run for more than five or six seasons.
If you keep going for a whole lot longer, you’re going to go over the cliff, or up over the peak of the mountain and you end up jumping the shark. So, given the intelligence of Marty Byrde and Wendy Byrde, if they keep going at this pitch for much longer, they’re either going to be killed or put in jail. The alternative is to flatten out that pitch so that you don’t end up jumping the shark, but then you start stalling just for additional episodes and seasons. So, I’m not sure where and when it’ll end, but given their intelligence, it doesn’t feel like it’s a 12-season show.
Ozark Season 3 is currently streaming on Netflix.
