Netflix Just Cancelled A $200 Million Series After One Season

Netflix just lost a ton of money on a show that only lasted a single season.

By Apeksha Bagchi | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

Jupiter's Legacy

Netflix has been on a canceling spree of sorts for the past year and a half. Since 2020 it has been ending series which gave every indication of continuing for more seasons. While those decisions were taken months after the show landed on the platform, the recently released superhero drama series Jupiter’s Legacy was just ended by the streamer less than four weeks after its debut. 

The Netflix original series, based on Mark Millar’s comic book series of the same name and directed by Steven S. DeKnight (Daredevil), has majorly received negative reviews from critics. It currently holds a low rating of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes where the general consensus pegs Jupiter’s Legacy as being “too overstuffed and slow-moving to land many narrative punches.” But despite the negative reviews, the cancellation of the series comes as a surprise as Season 1 ended on a major cliffhanger. Not only that, the star cast of the series has talked at length about the future seasons of the show. 

Nevertheless, the reception the series received was a major loss for Netflix. As reported by Borys Kit, a writer for The Hollywood Reporter, it cost around $200 million to create Jupiter’s Legacy. But in case you really dug the show and are now desperate to know how it ends, an upcoming Jupiter’s Legacy comic book by Millar, all set to be launched on June 16, will offer a conclusion as to how the journey of the superheroes end. 

But just because Jupiter’s Legacy has come to an unexpected and rather costly end, it doesn’t mean that Netflix subscribers won’t be seeing more adaptations of Mark Millar’s comic world creations. Netflix has already given a live-action series order to adapt Supercrooks, based on the comic book series of the same name by Millar and Leinil Francis Yu. Netflix already has an anime series adaptation of Supercrooks in development that will debut on the streamer first, after a world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June. It will see eight supervillains set in the world of Jupiter’s Legacy and planning a monumental heist. 

In a Twitter statement, Millar addressed the cancellation of Jupiter’s Legacy and shared that he’s beginning work on a live-action adaptation of his comic book series, Supercrooks, for Netflix that will focus on super-villains instead of superheroes. The series will explore what “it’s like to be a bad guy” in a world where the good guys are just itching to put you behind bars. 

In both the comic book series, i.e., Jupiter’s Legacy and Supercrooks, there are many characters that have crossed over into the other’s plot. But it is yet unknown whether characters from the now-canceled Netflix series will also be appearing in the live-action Supercrooks adaptation.  For now, while the cast of Jupiter’s Legacy- headed by Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb, and Ben Daniels- has been released from their respective contracts, Millar has expressed the possibility of returning to their characters’ story in the future. 

jupiter's legacy netflix

Meanwhile, Supercrooks is not the only series that Millar is working on for Netflix- other series based on the comic book creator’s works are also in development for the streamer, including The Magic Order, Sharkey the Bounty Hunter, American Jesus, Empress, Huck, and Prodigy.