In 2008, Manifest creator Jeff Rake was in a minivan on the way home from a family vacation in the Grand Canyon when the initial concept for the beloved supernatural drama came to him. “I didn’t have a job, and I needed an idea, and this sounds so terrible, but I literally spent the ride home thinking, ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen to a family on vacation?’” says Rake.

Ten years later, that “terrible” thought became Manifest — a supernatural drama series about families torn apart when a plane experiences turbulence, then lands five and a half years later (though no time has passed for the passengers on board) — which premiered on NBC before moving to Netflix for its fourth and final season in 2021. 

Now, on Aug. 28 (a beloved date for fans of the series!), Netflix has announced that the Manifest universe will return and expand with Arrivals: A New Manifest Mystery, a thrilling sci-fi series that will introduce a new cast of characters and uncharted storylines. The upcoming series reunites the creative team behind Manifest (Rake returns alongside former co-executive producers Margaret Easley and Laura Putney, who now step into the roles of co-creators and co-showrunners).

“I’m delighted to be able to tell a new story for the Manifest fans out there and also for a brand-new audience,” says Rake. “It’s been five long years since we showed up on Netflix, and there’s probably half a generation who has never heard of Manifest. We’ve tried to thread the needle in a way that’s rewarding for the OG Manifest fans, but also equally rewarding for people who are brand new to the show.”

Adds Jinny Howe, head of scripted series, US and Canada, “We are thrilled to expand the Manifest universe with Arrivals, led by the original creative team of Jeff Rake, Margaret Easley, and Laura Putney. Their return ensures the creative continuity essential to this franchise, allowing us to honor what made the original a phenomenon while introducing a fresh perspective for fans worldwide.”

The numbers behind Manifest’s Netflix run are hard to ignore. Since early 2023, all four seasons have amassed more than 130 million views. Season 4 alone spent nine weeks on the Global Top 10 English TV list and hit No. 1 in over 90 countries. Five years after Manifest arrived on Netflix, the original cast is still blown away by the response the series garnered. 

“When the momentum started with Netflix and the numbers kept going up, people were talking about it, and it turned into this huge thing. It became very exciting,” says Josh Dallas, who played Ben Stone, a passenger on Flight 828 who goes missing along with his sister, Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh), and son, Cal (Jack Messina), while his wife, Grace (Athena Karkanis), and daughter, Olive (Luna Blaise), believe them dead. 

The rocketing success of the series on Netflix after the NBC cancellation also came as a surprise to creator Rake, who initially wasn’t even aware Manifest had been licensed. “Melissa sent me this text with a link from Netflix, and she said, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ And I click on it, and lo and behold, it’s a trailer for Manifest, and according to the trailer, it’s dropping on Netflix the next day!” he says. “Unbeknownst to me, some executive at Warner Brothers had made a deal with some executive at Netflix. And sure enough, the first two seasons dropped two days later after we had been canceled on NBC — and were watched by everyone. We became No. 1 on Netflix for over a month and set a record. We were big on NBC, but we were never huge. We were never a phenomenon, and that happened that summer.”

While millions of viewers worldwide raced through the series, its future was still waiting to be claimed. Over the summer of 2021, rumors swirled about a possible movie that would tie up the show’s loose ends, fans brandished the #SaveManifest hashtag on social media, and celebrities from Kourtney Kardashian to Stephen King declared their support. Rake did everything he could — from joining fan viewing parties and engaging endlessly with Manifesters online to negotiating pickup deals — to ensure he got to tell the end of his story. In the end, it worked. “By the end of the summer 2021, we had a deal to finish the series on Netflix, and that changed everything,” says the creator. 

That deal included a 20-episode final season that gave the cast and creator an opportunity to close out the story for the devoted fan base, longstanding and new. “It felt like a good payoff, to do it right and tell the story properly — and have a really good last party,” says Roxburgh. “I remember when we did get canceled, I like to listen to my little gut, and it didn’t feel done. I just kept saying that. Then, as time went on, I was like, ‘I think maybe I’m crazy.’ But then the Netflix thing happened!”

The series finale delivered the rewarding conclusion fans were seeking. “We had the opportunity to pay off all those little Easter eggs that we had set up in Season 1,” says Rake. “Props to my colleagues for helping put all those pieces together, and props to Josh and Melissa and the rest of the cast for giving their all, all the way to that deeply emotional final episode.”

For Roxburgh, ending the series back on an airport set with most of the cast present was the most fitting way to wrap. “It really did feel like everyone coming together, everyone saying their goodbyes, and it was happening onscreen and offscreen, so it just went so perfectly with what we were actually feeling,” she says. “It felt like a big happy family having their goodbyes.”

Adds Dallas, “It was extremely emotional. Even more, for me, was the table read of the last episode. I couldn’t stop crying. I could not stop crying. I was like, ‘This is ridiculous. What is happening to me?’ But we weren’t only saying goodbye to the story, to these characters, but to each other as colleagues. And it was all wrapped up into one big, mushy, beautiful thing.” (You can watch the teary table read for the last ever episode in full here.)

Bringing the series to Netflix also gave Manifest a truly global audience — something that’s still apparent to the cast when they’re on the road. Dallas always finds Manifest fans in one setting in particular: “I get a lot of captains and people working on planes saying, ‘This isn’t going to be like that, is it?’ Or, ‘Not today. Go ahead and get off,’’ he says. “But mostly what I get is people stopping me saying really beautiful things like, ‘Oh, I used to watch this with my parents,’ or, ‘We used to watch this as a family.’ And they express these really personal, deep things to me about what the show meant to them as a viewer and their family. It’s surprising, and it always takes me aback a little bit and makes me really proud to know that we were all a part of this show that offered this outlet to people.” 

Stream all episodes of Manifest on Netflix now, and keep checking back to Tudum for more about the upcoming series Arrivals: A New Manifest Mystery.

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