Fox Cancels Stephen Dorff’s Police Drama Deputy After One Season

Stephen Dorff is a free agent again — at least for the time being, that is. Dorff’s Deputy has been cancelled by Fox after just one thirteen-episode season. In a new report from THR, the decision was made shortly the show’s first and only outing ended late last month. According to the trade’s sources, the ongoing coronavirus production delays had nothing to do with the series cancellation; rather, Fox was disappointed in the show’s less-than-stellar reception. Averaging 3.6 million viewers an episode, the show earned a 40-percent Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Audience Score isn’t much better, settling in right at 57-percent.

Another decision point in canceling the young series had reportedly been Dorff’s increasing salary. After a strong outing in True Detective this past year, it’s said the actor earned $250,000 per episode outside of any fees he got as a result of having an executive producer credit.

The procedural was produced by David Ayer and Chris Long’s Cedar Park production house, Entertainment One, Fox, and creator Will Beall. Dorff starred alongside Yara Martinez, Brian Van Holt, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Sienna Goines, and Shane Paul McGhie.

Around these parts, you might know Dorff best as Deacon Frost from the Wesley Snipes Blade trilogy. In one interview earlier this year, Dorff revealed he’d totally be down to appear in Marvel Studios’ upcoming reboot of the fan-favorite franchise. “We talked about doing a Deacon Frost movie on its own at one point, me and the director of the original Blade, who is just a genius, Stephen Norrington, and it never really happened because Marvel was a new entity and Kevin Feige was kind of building this whole new universe he’s built successfully,” Dorff confirmed to Entertainment Tonight. “They weren’t really interested in the dark Marvel movie but maybe after Joker and all this stuff, maybe it’ll start to be trendy.”

It’s unclear if the MCU’s version of Blade will get the studio’s first-ever R rating in light of the recent box office successes of darker comic book movies.

“I’m not the biggest fan of the superhero genre myself, but I did really love what my friend, Joaquin [Phoenix], did in Joker, and I think he’s probably going to win the Oscar for that. I’m really proud of him for his work in that, and I think there is room to tell other stories. I’m just not a big fan of the big ensemble, like 50 characters in one movie frame, it’s just a bit much for me,” the actor added. “But then again, I’m 46 and I’m old. I’m not a kid anymore so if I was a kid, I’d probably love it.”

The new Blade movie has yet to get a release date from Marvel Studios