Hulu seems to have shocked almost everyone by cancelling Reboot, the latest series from Modern Family creator Steve Levitan — and that includes its cast. In the days since the streamer announced they would not pick up another season of the acclaimed series, stars Johnny Knoxville and Rachel Bloom have stepped up to address the move. It’s worth noting that Levitan and 20th Television are pitching the series to others, so it may come back to life somewhere other than Hulu, but for the time being, the cast have to work with the assumption that the series is really over.
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That said, Rachel Bloom — whose Crazy Ex Girlfriend was a big hit for The CW around the same time Levitan was blowing people away with Modern Family — says they are definitely trying to find a new home. She told The Hollywood Reporter that while they kind of saw it coming, it’s still a shock.
“The writing was on the wall for a little bit of time because we weren’t hearing anything,” Bloom told THR. “I’m confused, people seemed to be watching it in my world. They don’t release numbers so I’m not sure how metrics work.”
She continued, “I’m hoping we can sell it to a new place, I think it’s a fantastic show. I said from the beginning if I saw this show I would want to be on it, and I’d be jealous of anyone who was on it. So, I still can’t believe that I got to be on it, that I get to be on it. The cast is so fucking fantastic. I don’t know, I don’t understand the market.”
The market is admittedly difficult to understand. For years, most streaming services have been operating at a loss, with their owners understanding that they were a good long-term investment since streaming is seen as the future of TV and film. With the post-pandemic economic downturn, streaming services are doing everything they can to become more profitable in the short term, from cancelling expensive shows to abandoning content that they think is too expensive to store on their servers.
In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery shocked everyone by cancelling some high profile projects including Batgirl and Scoob: Holiday Haunt, despite the fact that they were already nearly complete. Writing down tens of millions of dollars in losses, WB took a lot of heat from audiences and creatives alike…but they seem to have opened a floodgate, with other studios and streamers making similar moves in the months since.
In Reboot, Hulu reboots an early 2000’s sitcom, forcing its dysfunctional cast back together. Now they must deal with their unresolved issues in today’s fast-changing world.
The series stars Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, Paul Reiser, Rachel Bloom, Calum Worthy, and Krista Marie Yu.
