Hayley Atwell Opens Up About Why Agent Carter Was Cancelled

07/30/2017 05:27 pm EDT

Marvel has some explaining to do. It's been some time since fans first learned about Agent Carter's exit from cable, but audiences are still miffed about the loss. The female-led drama has amassed a diehard following since its untimely cut, and Hayley Atwell is now explaining to those fans why the show got axed.

Up Next: Hayley Atwell Reveals What Would've Happened In Agent Carter Season 3

Recently, the Captain America star sat down with IGN to talk about her recent work on Howards End for Starz. It was there Agent Carter was brought up, and Atwell said the show's cancellation came down to politics.

"You know Marvel and all the creatives behind the making of the show loved it. And we loved it. We all loved making it," Atwell said.

"It was a network political thing. They wanted to put me in something mainstream [Conviction] to get their ratings up rather than something that was more genre specific. There were a lot of economic decisions behind it and I wasn't a part of the conversation," she continued.

"We were all really surprised about that because we kind of got the sense that people were liking it. It had this cult following," Atwell finished, saying, "So I know there've been online campaigns for it and the fact that we know that she lives until the age of 96 means that technically I could be employed for the rest of my life, you know."

Of course, fans would love to see Peggy Carter make a return to the MCU. Audiences were delighted to see Atwell reprise her role briefly in Ant-Man after she starred in both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The love fans have for the SHIELD founder knows little bounds, and Atwell hasn't given up on her character's theatrical livelihood.

"I'd love to see [Peggy] more in films. I'd love to see her in her own film," Atwell told Ign. "And if we can keep evolving it so that she does new things so that I can surprise myself and she can keep surprising me then I'd love to do it."

There are currently no formal plans to reintroduce the British agent to the MCU; After all, Captain America: Civil War saw Steve Rogers lay Peggy to rest. There are still ways the franchise can bring back Atwell, and audiences are already speculating over which route Marvel Studios may lean towards.

Captain Marvel has the opportunity to include Peggy since the film will be set in the 1990s, and the third and four Avengers movie could literally resurrect the heroine if Thanos wills his Infinity Guantlet to do so. If the demand for Peggy is there and Marvel Studios has a way to bring her back, Atwell has a long career with the franchise ahead of her. And, for that, fans can be grateful.

You can read the synopsis of Agent Carter's first season below:

"In 1946, top SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve) operative Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is still reeling from the loss of Steve Rogers (a.k.a., Captain America). But now that the war is over, peacetime deals her yet another blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad. Now her "missions" consist of fetching coffee and answering phones—until old acquaintance Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) is framed for selling his deadliest weapons to the highest bidder, and he contacts the one person he trusts to clear his name: Agent Carter.

Working as a secret double agent with the aid of Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis (James D'Arcy), Peggy must evade both her SSR colleagues and mysterious foreign assassins as she attempts to track down those responsible and dispose of the weapons before they inflict mass destruction."

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