Stephen King's The Outsider Cancelled By HBO

Stephen King's The Outsider has been canceled by HBO after only one season, though it remains a [...]

By Matthew Aguilar

Stephen King's The Outsider has been canceled by HBO after only one season, though it remains a bit puzzling as to why. The Outsider actually had relatively strong numbers during its 10 episodes, and the decision to cancel it took about eight months after the season (and now potentially series) finale aired (via THR). This might not be the end for the series though, as producers MRC Television will attempt to find a new home for the show, and showrunner Richard Price is still attached to helm a second season if it does find a home on another network, so fans of the show should keep their fingers crossed it does.

HBO released a statement on the cancellation, which you can read below.

"We enjoyed our collaboration with Richard, Jason, Andrew [Bernstein], and the MRC team, and we wish them well in continuing the world created by the brilliant Stephen King," HBO's statement reads.

The Outsider averaged better than 9 million viewers per episode across all platforms according to HBO, and its finale brought in 1.37 million people watching it live. When replays and streaming were totaled, it hit 2.2 million.

Comparing that to Watchmen (7 million viewers over a similar span of time) or HBO's most recent hit Lovecraft Country, which brought in 1.5 million viewers for its season 1 finale. Outsider seems pretty on par or in some cases better than other recent projects, so it remains to be seen why HBO decided not to renew it for a second season. Perhaps it was more tied to creative things for a second season or maybe it was a bit too expensive to make for its viewership.

Nothing is known about that, so that's all just conjecture, but hopefully the series can find another home and continue. We've seen it time and time again over the past few years, so odds are it will end up getting a second season somewhere else but the time all is said and done.

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