Justin Theroux's 'Leftovers' is renewed for a third and final season

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- HBO says it has renewed The Leftovers -- its cerebral, science-fiction drama starring Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman and Liv Tyler -- for a third and final season.

The renewal news was announced Thursday by Michael Lombardo, president of HBO programming.

Created by screenwriter-producer Damon Lindelof and novelist Tom Perrotta, the series is produced for HBO by White Rabbit in association with Warner Bros. Television. The show takes place after an event causes 2 percent of the world's population to inexplicably and simultaneously vanish.

"It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome back Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta and the extraordinary talent behind The Leftovers for its third and final season," Lombardo said in a statement. "This show has proven to be one of the most distinctive HBO series and we are extremely proud of its unrivaled originality, which has resulted in such a passionate following by our HBO viewers. We admire and fully support Damon's artistic vision and respect his decision to bring the show to its conclusion next season."

"I have never, ever experienced the level of creative support and trust that I have received from HBO during the last two seasons of The Leftovers," added Lindelof. "Tom, myself and our incredible team of writers and producers put tremendous care into designing those seasons as novels unto themselves... with beginnings, middles and ends. As we finished our most recent season, it became clear to us that the series as a whole was following the same model... and with our beginning and middle complete, the most exciting thing for us as storytellers would be to bring The Leftovers to a definitive end. And by 'definitive,' we mean 'wildly ambiguous but hopefully mega-emotional,' as all things related to this show are destined to be. On behalf of our incredible crew and superb cast, we are all tremendously grateful that HBO is giving us an opportunity to conclude the show on our own terms... an opportunity like this one rarely comes along, and we have every intention of living up to it. One more thing. We are blessed by the unwavering support of our fans and the incredibly powerful voice of the critical community. We feel absolutely privileged to heat up one last helping of leftovers."