All the DC and Marvel TV Show Cancellations

TV upfronts are underway this week, and while there will still be news to come throughout the week and several broadcasters have not yet set their final schedules, most continuing series have either been cancelled or renewed at this point.

Marvel and DC have several projects on the air, and while most of them have been renewed for another year, there are a couple that have sadly been cancelled.

There are also a couple of shows that are in a kind of limbo, which we will get to as well.

Lucifer, based on the DC/Vertigo comic by Neil Gaiman, Mike Carey, etc., aired its Season Three finale last night on FOX — and barring a deal with the devil, it seems that will be the show’s series finale as well.

Officially, the reason for the cancellation is that FOX had a strong freshman season and renewed a number of first-year shows, so some of its veteran bubble shows suffered. A deeper look has pointed out that ahead of 20th Century Fox TV‘s acquisition by Disney, FOX the network has moved away from most of its relationships with non-Fox studios.

The show left off on a cliffhanger, something that showrunners are still hopeful they can pay off by finding another home for the supernatural procedural. Fans, meanwhile, have taken to the internet with a campaign to save the show, urging The CW, Hulu, and other potential partners for the series to pick it up.

Marvel’s Inhumans is gone, but nobody much is surprised by that revelation. The writing has been on the wall for the Agents of SHIELD spinoff since before it even premiered. Inhumans, which was originally announced as a feature film, ended up becoming a TV property instead.

As a show of support for the series, Disney screened a special cut — basically a re-edited version of the first two episodes — at IMAX theaters around the country before the show’s premiere date. It bombed, earning less worldwide than a two-day special release of Warner Animation’s Batman: The Killing Joke made domestically, and the poor reviews — it earned just 10% on Rotten Tomatoes — likely contributed to soft ratings as well. The high price tag and low return made this an obvious cancellation for ABC.

One show that occupies a kind of middle ground is Gotham, which earned a renewal for a shortened, final season. The plan is to tie up some loose ends and introduce the show’s version of the Dark Knight before it concludes its run at the end of next season.

Unfortunately for fans eager for more, Gotham will be a summer series next year, meaning that the next episodes will not be on the air until 2019 — almost a year after this season’s finale.

Krypton has yet to be renewed or cancelled; SYFY is less bound by the timetables most networks constrain themselves to, and has been known to renew late. Last season, the network renewed Wynonna Earp just in time for Comic Con in San Diego — in July. Given its performance — its ratings average makes it SYFY’s second-most-watched sereis — it seems like a lock for renewal, although a hefty production cost and the licensing fees that DC charges to make shows based on their properties can always play into such a decision. On that same note, Wynonna Earp has not even begun airing its new season yet and will likely not be renewed or cancelled for quite a while.