Netflix Cancels Mark Millar's The Magic Order Series Before Filming Begins

The great Netflix content overhaul continues. Friday afternoon, news surfaced the streamer would no longer be pursuing a live-action adaptation of Mark Millar's The Magic Order. The news comes days after the platform announced it was canceling a pair of fan-favorite shows in GLOW and Teenage Bounty Hunters. Now, the Reed Hastings-led company will no longer continue developing a series based on the comic property it owns and publishes.

First reported by Deadline, the series was expected to start filming early next year. Instead, Netflix decided to pull the plug, reportedly citing rising costs related to the scope of the project. Coupled with a landscape largely impacted by an ongoing global pandemic, it's said the streamer remains high on the property — both as a comic and as a television series — and hopes to revisit it at a later date.

As with other properties in development from Millar at the streamer, it was expected The Magic Order would take place in a pseudo-Millar Cinematic Universe alongside the likes of Jupiter's Legacy and American Jesus. Jupiter's Legacy wrapped its first season earlier this year, shortly before coronavirus shutdowns swept the industry.

Millar was set to produce alongside James Wan and Lindsey Beer.

It was just earlier this week rumors surfaced online suggesting Olivia Cooke had been cast in the series, though Netflix or Millar himself had yet to confirm the news.

Shortly after the news of GLOW's cancellation surfaced, series creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch spoke to the news, suggesting Hollywood is much bigger than the content it producers, especially when the masses have been impacted by a global pandemic.

"COVID has killed actual humans. It's a national tragedy and should be our focus. COVID also apparently took down our show. Netflix has decided not to finish filming the final season of GLOW," the writers said. "We were handed the creative freedom to make a complicated comedy about women and tell their stories. And wrestle. And now that's gone. There's a lot of sh*tty things happening in the world that are much bigger than this right now. But it still sucks that we don't get to see these 15 women in a frame together again."