Netflix recently announced that Jupiter's Legacy would not be returning for a second season, with the cast, led by Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb and Ben Daniels, released from their commitments and free to pursue other projects. We were told that Netflix and Mark Millar simply went in a different creative direction, but more specific details have now come to light.
The bloody adaptation of Millar's comic series received mixed reviews from critics (and evidently didn't go over particularly well with viewers), but THR reports that the series was "plagued with issues from the start."
It sounds like the budget was a major factor, with then-showrunner Steven DeKnight reportedly telling Netflix that each episode would cost at least $12 million. The streamer backed him down to $9 million, and when the production started to run into problems, DeKnight was replaced by Sang Kyu Kim (The Walking Dead), who then had to "retool the first batch of episodes."
Ultimately, costs began to surge beyond even what DeKnight originally asked for (it seems he was proven right), and insiders believe the final budget of the season to be "upwards of $200 million." Louis Leterrier (Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Lupin) is said to have been brought on as a consultant to see if he could salvage the show, but by then it was too late.
It'd be easy to assume that bad metrics played a part in the cancellation, but Nielsen showed that Jupiter's Legacy topped its streaming chart, generating 696 million minutes of view time in the week of May 3-9, so people were seemingly tuning in. Unfortunately, we won't get a proper read on viewership unless Netflix decides to release the figures (not gonna happen).
A live-action Supercrooks series is in development, however, and Netflix insists that it's still "invested in Millarworld for the long haul."
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