To be able to properly wrap up Lara Jean and Peter's story, the potential To All The Boys 4 film needs to take place after a significant time jump. To All The Boys: Always and Forever ended Netflix's hit rom-com franchise based on Jenny Han's To All The Boys I've Loved Before novels. But if the streaming giant decides to continue Lara Jean and Peter's story beyond their high school years, they need to make sure that there's ample time in-between the end of their trilogy and what happens next.
Kicking off in 2018 with To All The Boys I've Loved Before, the movie quickly became a success for Netflix that the sequels were immediately green-lit. Since then, To All The Boys: PS I Still Love You was released, and more recently, To All The Boys 3. It was clear from the get-go that Lara Jean would end up with Peter despite the introduction of Josh Sanderson and John Ambrose, but as the couple head to different universities for college, their narrative can easily continue if Netflix wants to continue capitalizing on its popularity.
Instead of picking up where To All The Boys: Always and Forever ended, To All The Boys 4 should take place in the distant future, possibly during the final year of Lara Jean and Peter's college lives leading to their graduation. At this point, they survived their long-distance set-up — something that they both dreaded in the third film and the primary reason why they almost broke up despite both of them not really wanting to. As Lara Jean hinted at the end of To All The Boys: Always and Forever, they are going to make this challenging circumstance work so there's really nothing new and fresh in tackling that. So, To All The Boys 4 should revisit the story at a different inflection point at Lara Jean and Peter's narrative wherein they have to decide what comes next in their lives after college considering that they are on opposite ends of the country.
This makes for an interesting premise because both have expectedly grown so much during their university years. Granted that they did stay together, it would be good to see how their older selves would tackle the next big step in their individual and collective lives. Perhaps Lara Jean still wants to stay in New York since she loves it so much there, while Peter's future is in California. It's a more mature narrative that effectively sets the To All The Boys franchise apart from Netflix's other rom-com series, The Kissing Booth, with The Kissing Booth 2 already dealing with a long-distance romance between Elle and Noah.
Outside of the narrative, this also works for Netflix considering that there are no plans for To All The Boys 4 thus far. Han's books end with To All The Boys: Always and Forever and there's no word yet whether or not they intend to continue. Even if they greenlit a sequel, however, it would take years before it releases because the coronavirus pandemic has slowed down Hollywood production, not to mention Netflix's stacked slate of projects for the foreseeable future. Given this, the franchise can take a real-time break if they pick up Lara Jean and Peter's story towards the end of their college years.