Chris Pratt isn’t quite ready to say The Terminal List is coming back for a third season (we imagine someone might put him in the timeout chair if he did), but he certainly isn’t ruling it out.
Ahead of the release of the latest season of the Prime Video action thriller, Pratt and his co-stars Constance Wu, Tom Hopper, Gabriel Luna, and Dar Salim sat down with D-Stroy on SiriusXM’s Shade 45 to talk about the series, its increasingly ambitious action sequences, and the real-world experience that goes into making the show feel authentic.
When the possibility of a third season came up, Pratt pointed to one pretty significant advantage: There is plenty more James Reece material to work with.
“There’s no shortage of source material,” Pratt said.
Jack Carr, whose novels serve as the basis for the series, has written eight James Reece books, according to Pratt, along with his nonfiction work and Cry Havoc. That gives The Terminal List team plenty of potential stories to pull from if Amazon decides to keep the series going.
“I think success in this season would certainly be helpful to continue to tell these stories,” Pratt said. “There’s nothing official yet, but man, we have a lot of ideas.”
That’s about as close to a Season 3 tease as fans are likely to get for now. And Pratt isn’t the only person involved with the series who already has an idea of where the story could go.
Tom Hopper Already Has a ‘Terminal List’ Story in Mind for Season 3
As Hopper told Men’s Journal ahead of Season 2, he’d love to see the series tackle Savage Son, the third book in Carr’s James Reece series.
“I want to make Savage Son,” Hopper told Men’s Journal. “I think Savage Son has a story.”
For Hopper, the appeal isn’t simply getting another season of the show. The book gives him an opportunity to dig much deeper into Raife Hastings, the character he’s played in both Dark Wolf and True Believer.
“I want to make sure that we get to the point where we see what Raife’s family means to him,” Hopper said. “He’s an incredibly strong family man, and what the Hastings family name means to him.”
Hopper also specifically wants to explore Raife’s history in Africa, something he said the television series has only touched on so far.
That makes Savage Son particularly interesting as a potential next chapter.
Chris Pratt Says He’d Keep Making ‘The Terminal List’ Even If Nobody Watched
Pratt also made it pretty clear that he’s not looking for an exit.
The actor said he and the rest of the cast have become deeply attached to the characters and to each other through the process of making the series. For Pratt, that relationship has become one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
“I know we love playing these characters and telling these stories,” he said.
He went even further, joking that he’d be willing to keep doing it even without an audience.
“Hell, I would do this if no one was watching,” Pratt said.
Of course, an audience would help.
The actor described the release of the new season as the destination for everyone involved, but said the experience of actually making the series has been just as meaningful.
“You talk about the journey,” Pratt said. “The destination is Wednesday. You binge it. That’s what the whole point is.”
For Pratt, the journey has meant building friendships and relationships with the people who make the series, including the veterans who help ensure the show’s depiction of combat and military life doesn’t drift into Hollywood fantasy.
Veterans Are a Crucial Part of ‘The Terminal List’
One of the most interesting parts of Pratt’s conversation with D-Stroy on SiriusXM’s Shade 45 was his discussion of the veterans who work behind the scenes on The Terminal List.
Pratt said having people with actual combat experience involved in the production gives the cast and crew a perspective they simply couldn’t get from movies and television.
“Everything I know about combat, I learned from watching movies,” Pratt said. “But he’s experienced this lived-in reality.”
The “he” Pratt was referring to is Jared Shaw, a former Navy SEAL who serves as a producer and writer on the series and also plays Boozer.
Shaw and Pratt go back years. Pratt said the two were roommates about eight years ago, and Shaw would regularly point out the things movies get wrong about combat.
“He would pick things out,” Pratt recalled. “And he’s like, ‘That’s not what it looks like. See, that’s dumb.’”
For Pratt, those corrections are exactly what make the difference.
The Cast Wants ‘The Terminal List’ to Get the Details Right
Constance Wu agreed with Pratt that having veterans involved is invaluable.
“It’s the best,” Wu said.
Pratt explained that the veterans involved in the production aren’t simply there to make the show look more convincing. They’re also part of the audience the series is trying hardest to respect.
“Ultimately, we’re making the show as a way to honor these men who have served our country and have put on a uniform and sacrificed so much,” Pratt said.
That creates a particularly high bar for the series. The operators depicted in The Terminal List are exceptionally skilled, but Pratt said the goal isn’t to portray them as superheroes.
“Not superheroes, real human beings,” he said.
He said veterans have approached him after seeing the series to tell him how much it means to them that the production team made an effort to get elements such as combat tactics and the “fog of war” right.
“They’re our audience,” Pratt said. “And so having that authenticity come from someone who can sniff out inauthenticity in a way that maybe I can’t or the typical person can’t is really paramount to that.”
It’s one of the reasons the show has leaned so heavily on veterans throughout its production. For an action series, getting the explosions and gunfights right is one thing. Getting the people inside those situations right is considerably harder.
Will There Be a Season 3 of ‘The Terminal List’?
For now, the answer is maybe.
Amazon has not officially announced a third season, and Pratt was careful to say that nothing is official. But there’s no shortage of material. Carr has multiple James Reece novels left to adapt, Pratt says the cast has plenty of ideas, and Hopper has already made his preference clear: He wants to see Savage Son brought to the screen.
For fans, that’s a pretty enticing possibility.
