We're still a few seasons away from Survivor 50, which will be the show's 50th season. Earlier this year, Survivor host and executive producer Jeff Probst revealed that Survivor 50 will feature a cast of returning players.
Now, Probst has shared another update about the Survivor 50 cast, and it's a good one!
100 Survivor players are still being considered for the Survivor 50 cast
In a new interview with Variety, Probst revealed that they are trying to figure out the Survivor 50 cast right now. They haven't picked the full cast, but they're narrowing down the list.
At the time of the interview, Probst and co. were down to 100 players still being considered for the Survivor 50 cast.
"We started out with a list of around 200, like, every person we would like to see, regardless of whether they want to do it or not. And then we got the list down to 125 and now I have it down to around 100."
That's such an insane number! We know that there are so many Survivor players who probably want to return for Survivor 50, but it's a huge challenge to figure out who the show wants back, who will work together, who will play off each other, and most importantly, who makes the best TV.
It's a tough job, but if there's anything we know about Survivor, they usually get these big moments right.
To make it all happen, Probst also shared a little bit of the process of how they worked their way down from the initial 200 players to cut that list in half.
"I printed out their faces on 4×6 magnetic sheets with their names, the season they first played, and how old they will be if they play in 50. I’m going to put them on the whiteboard and take in the very first steps toward what I think will go down as the most enjoyable problem we’ve ever had to solve: How are you going to get this down to a handful of people to play ‘Survivor’ 50 that will satisfy the fans and will honor 50 seasons?"
With Winners at War, which is probably the biggest season of the series to date, they brought back 20 of the 39 winners. We've seen other seasons featuring returning players, but again, there's always a far smaller group of former players to choose from.
It's such a conundrum because I think we all want to see the fan favorites return, including Sandra Diaz-Twine, Boston Rob, Tony Vlachos, and others. But, they've already played so many times. Boston Rob has mentioned on a few occasions that he's not really interested in returning to the island under the current format where the most well-known characters are always targeted early in the game.
Obviously, they'll want to include at least a few of the more recent players from the new era of the game, too. It's such a different style of game, and the game has evolved so much since even season 25. If I could nominate one player for Survivor 50, it's Charlie Davis! I don't think we got to see Charlie play to the best of his abilities because he toned down his approach, and he used Maria's alliance as a shield for much of the season. I was so impressed with his decision-making, though. He didn't win the season, but I think, if we saw Charlie pushed to the limit, he'd respond with some diabolical strategy needed to win the season.
I think we'll start learning in the coming months who is back for Survivor 50 through unofficial sources. It's going to be a challenge to keep all these former players quiet!
As I mentioned, we're still a few seasons away from the big one! Survivor 47 premieres on Sept. 18 on CBS. Survivor 48 will air this spring, assuming all goes well, and then Survivor 49 and Survivor 50 will film in 2025.
We'll share more updates about the upcoming seasons of Survivor as we find out!