The Originals season 5 spoilers: Danielle Rose Russell to play older Hope

One of the best things about The Originals season 4 was the brilliant casting of Summer Fontana in the part of Hope. She was new to the show and very young, but she managed to carve out a great relationship with Joseph Morgan and even play a darker side of the character courtesy of The Hollow. She had a ton of challenging material, but somehow she carried it all without any major problems.

It’s with that in mind that we were first surprised to hear that the character would be recast courtesy of a big time jump for season 5. Now, Danielle Rose Russell has the challenge of taking on this role. As first reported by Entertainment Weekly, the actress (who has appeared in Aloha and The Last Tycoon) is going to be playing the teenage version of Hope, a young woman who presumably has grown up as a student of the school started by Alaric and Caroline for supernatural children. This is where she was sent after the events of season 4, understandably so that nothing else terrible would happen to her.

At this point, Hope may have a better sense of who she is, and also what she wants out of her life.

Beyond just her casting for The Originals, there is a chance that Russell could be playing this role for a rather long time. After all, there have been discussions about a spin-off series starring this version of Hope, which would be most interesting in how it takes the story of The Vampire Diaries almost full-circle. Hope is going to be around the same age that Elena was at the start of that show on The CW. This could allow the show to explore some similar themes and twist the story in new/interesting directions.

In the end, though, the big question that we have with a proposed spin-off is this: Would there be the audience for it? The show would have to recruit some new viewers, given that The Originals is at best a bubble show at this point in its life. We want several more new seasons of it, but typically spin-offs don’t even get the full viewership of the shows they come off of.

New episodes of The Originals are going to premiere on The CW in 2018. There are some other changes coming, given that Julie Plec and Jeffrey Lieber are replacing Michael Narducci as showrunner. There are also going to be some other new characters, including someone in Margot who we just wrote about yesterday. Head over here to learn a little bit more about that character.

Your thoughts

Do you think that having an older Hope could be good for The Originals, or were you happy with the story the way that it was previously? Share in the attached comments. (Photo: The CW.)