Lucifer Showrunners Explain Their Reaction To Becoming a Huge Hit After Cancellation

Lucifer is in that category of DC Comics adaptations — along with shows like Doom Patrol and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow — which have taken on an identity of their own, beyond the comic book source material, and developed passionate fan bases even among those who are not regular comics readers. The show ran for six seasons — first on Fox, and then on Netflix — before executive producers Joe Hendson and Ildy Modrovich were allowed to bring it in for a graceful landing in 2021. Almost exactly a year later, the complete series is coming to DVD, and the final season is hitting DVD and Blu-ray (although to get the latter, you’ve got to do it through the Warner Archive online).

The series was cancelled at Fox, and almost immediately rumors started up that it would be saved and brought to Netflix. Once it was, it was consistently the most-streamed TV show of the year, every year new episodes were airing. The notion that it would be considered a broadcast TV failure, only to become a crown jewel of the biggest streaming service in the world, seemed crazy — and it certainly gave the showrunners some satisfaction.

“It’s very, very odd and fabulous,” Modrovich told ComicBook.com. “I mean, we were just in our little devil-solving-crimes bubble, not knowing that anybody was really watching. We kind of had no idea, and then when we got canceled, and everybody rose up in the great war to bring us back. We were stunned. We were talking about it earlier, but it’s like we became fans of the show, because the fans were so impassioned. It was infectious. We were like, ‘They love it! We do too!’ And we just got more and more excited to bring them things. We would be in the room going, ‘Oh, they’re going to love this,’ or ‘Oh, no, no, no, no. That’ll piss them off. Let’s not do that.’ We were so protective of it, because people were so moved by our show, or loved it so much.”

“For the first couple seasons when I’d tell people I was working on, I would get one of two responses. One, ‘How is working with Idris Elba?’ And I’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s Luther,’ or, ‘Oh that’s interesting. Are you working with Glen Mazzara?’ And I’d be like, ‘That’s Damien,’” Henderson said with a laugh. “And then they’d finally be like, ‘Oh, Lucifer, I’ll have to watch that sometime.’ And that was it. They would have no idea.”

So, when did that change? The moment is kind of perfect for fans of the show.

“I remember the cast also, they would talk about how they would travel internationally, never have a problem,” Henderson said. “And then season four dropped and Kevin Alejandro was wandering Italy and all of a sudden he hears a bunch of Italians yelling, ‘Douche! Douche!’ He’s like, ‘I think we might be a hit finally, four seasons in.’”

Lucifer: The Complete Series is out on DVD today. Lucifer: The Sixth and Final Season is available on DVD and Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. Keep a look out for more from our conversation with Henderson and Modrovich over the next couple of days.