Is it the end of The Good Wife‘s run on CBS? The showrunners, Roberts and Michelle King, had already announced they would be leaving the show after its seventh and current season, but now it sounds like Julianna Margulies may also be leaving the show.
During a speech at the Casting Society of America’s Artios Awards to honor the Kings, Vulture reports Margulies said, “I surprised Robert and Michelle tonight. They didn’t know I was going to be here. They think I’m here for them, but I’m unemployed come April, and I think you haven’t seen me in while, at least not in person, so I thought I should show up.” Variety claims sources say The Good Wife star was only joking, but the series has yet to be renewed for another season. However, there is some speculation that CBS might try to renew the show for a short final season of 10 or 13 episodes.
“The bottom line is CBS is trying to make deals for an eighth season,” Robert King said earlier this month according TV Line. “So we would be there in a supervisory role, but the storytelling we have will finish in the seventh year. That doesn’t mean we’re putting Alicia in her grave, because you couldn’t do an eighth season after that. But to our minds, we have always written with the idea we could end this season a certain way so that it would make it a satisfactory [conclusion to the] series.”
“But we don’t own it,” King added. “But we understand completely CBS’s interest in it.”
As to whether or not the show will withstand without its showrunners, Glenn Gellar, the CBS president, told reporters at the recent Television Critics Association press tour, “the show can absolutely continue” without the Kings. The show might go on without its current showrunners, but can it continue without its star?