The 27th season of The Simpsons premiered on Fox last night, and according to showrunner Al Jean, there’s a fairly good chance the show won’t continue after season 30. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jean was asked about The Simpsons’ double season renewal for seasons 27 and 28 and what that means for the show’s future, and here’s what he had to say:
You’re renewed through season 28, with the cast signed on with options through season 30. Do you want to do more after 30? It’s quite possible that we don’t have to go through the whole negotiation for 30. I wouldn’t be stunned if we stopped at 28 but my bet is on at least 30. But then you’d have to resign them again. If you made me pick one, I’d say the likeliest is ending after 30, but I’ve been wrong before. I thought five seasons was good when I got there (laughs).
Jean also gave some hints about what we can expect from season 27’s Treehouse of Horror episode, which he says will be like “nothing we’ve ever doneâ€:
We’re trying to break barriers and it’s like nothing we’ve ever done. It’s a bit of a very scary tribute to Hanna-Barbera cartoons but updated. Then we have Sideshow Bob killing Bart. And if you wanted Bob to kill Bart, you’re going to get your wish. I was always the kind of kid that wanted Coyote to eat the Roadrunner, so this made me very happy. Kelsey Grammer [who voices Sideshow Bob] was definitely for it. He was like, “Oh, finally!†And Bart can still reappear on the show — we’re not really killing Bart because it’s the Halloween show and it doesn’t “really happen,†unlike everything else that really happened. Then we have a Godzilla parody, where it turns into all the remakes of Godzilla they make that nobody wants to see. Then there’s a segment based on Chronicle, that found footage movie with kids superpowers, but it turns awry.
Read the rest of the interview over at THR.