It’s not unheard of for Netflix to quickly cancel TV shows, they frankly do it all the time, but after the streamer’s major acquisition of Mark Millar’s entire original comic book catalogue it seemed like they were prepared to invest in adaptations of his work. The first one of these that made it out of the gate was Jupiter’s Legacy, an adaptation of the Millar/Frank Quietly series about generations of superheroes, and one that suffered some behind-the-scenes drama multiple times over on its trip to the screen. That said it was still shocking when less than a month after its premiere the series was cancelled with plans for a second season altered to make the show an anthology, with an all new cast and plot. While fans were shocked to hear of the sudden cancellation, the cast was especially surprised.
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Speaking in a new interview with Cinema Blend, actor Matt Lanter, who played George Hutchence/Skyfox in the series, opened up about the sudden end to the show and how he thought he’d be working on it for the next decade. “Jupiter’s Legacy, it’s a shame. It’s a big bummer. It’s not something we expected. Honestly, I thought I was going to be doing that for probably the next 10 years of my life the way they shoot the seasons and put them together. I was thinking we were gonna see four-five seasons of Jupiter’s Legacy. I’m glad we got one season of it out there, it’s a high quality, pretty amazing superhero show.”
He continued, “At the end of Season 1 there, you can tell we were just about to explode the whole thing and really dive into the story. People have shared the same sentiment with me. Matter of fact, I just did a Comic-Con in Kansas City this past weekend, and a lot of people were talking to me about Jupiter’s Legacy and how they loved it, and I did to. Gosh, there’s so much story there in the comics, it’s right there just waiting to be told… I really loved that character, he was such an interesting character, and I was excited to get to play him for a while. It just didn’t happen, I guess that’s the business part of show business.”
It was previously reported that the series had major viewership in its first two weeks according to Nielsen’s streaming rankings. The tracker reported that some “696 million minutes of view time” were used on the series in its first week, rising to 1.02 billion minutes of viewing time from May 10 to 16. In a major write-up about the show’s demise however it was revealed that ballooning production costs and the behind-the-scenes troubles are what ultimately ended the show, and that a changing of the guard at Netflix’s television leadership was the final nail in the coffin.
