Prison Break Cancellation – Alternate Ending Revealed & Season 6 Revival Odds

***PRISON BREAK SEASON 5/SERIES FINALE SPOILER ALERT***

Prison Break‘s escape from the cancellation graveyard didn’t last long. Axed after one revived season (five overall), the limited series ended with Michael finally reunited with his family.

However, executive producer Paul Scheuring has revealed that an alternate, less positive ending was also crafted, per EW:

The idea was Michael comes back and he’s apparently got a normal life, but with that comes a creeping paranoia that things can’t stay good like this. Unfortunately, that’s not on screen, but the idea that he’s always going to be looking over his shoulder. There was a scripted page where they said, “Michael, you can stop looking over your shoulder now, you’re free,” but then he looks over his shoulder and you can see the whole world out there and all the people in the park and everything, and any one of them might be a threat and you realize that a man like this could never go back to a normal life, but again that didn’t end up happening exactly how we wanted it so this is what we got on film. I think it still emotionally lands them in a good spot, and hopefully the audience gets the subtext that life will never be normal for Michael Scofield.

Despite being cancelled twice over, Scheuring isn’t closing the door on another revival in future years, per THR:

Like any great feature film — like an Indiana Jones or something — the movie itself is self-contained, but if there’s going to be a sequel, that can be its own self-contained thing afterwards. The intention for this season was to just really kill it for nine episodes, walk away and then should conversations ever develop again about doing another season, we would consider that, and then in turn create another self-standing season. In other words, the idea of getting Michael to smile in the end and walk away with him happy … that wasn’t necessarily the endgame.

On the chance of Season 6 should the escape hatch loosen once more, he added:

There’s a zero percent chance of the show coming back if we don’t have a top-notch story. Right now, we don’t have that story. That’s not to say we can’t find it. But we’re not going to make the show in perpetuity because we want to. We want it to be of very high value and high quality. Right now, the creative powers that be don’t have that answer. So it may never come back. I’m not being coy. I hold the quality standard very high. If we can’t get something that doesn’t in some way feel new and different, then we’re not doing it. That’s difficult when you have a very singular conceit like Prison Break. You have to get out of prison! So what prison is it now? So, it’s tough. I would be open to it, but only if we can find a story that’s going to knock your socks off.

Are you disappointed with Prison Break‘s cancellation? Would you watch a future Prison Break revival series?

As always, stay tuned as we monitor the cancellation graveyard for signs of life…