Twilight Zone Cancelled Ahead of Paramount+ Launch

Jordan Peele's buzzy revival of The Twilight Zone will not return for a third season, making it the biggest CBS All Access show not to make the transition to Paramount+ when the new platform launches on March 4. The series ran for two, ten-episode seasons beginning in 2019, with the second, now final, season releasing on June 25, 2020. The Twilight Zone -- both Rod Serling's original series and the Peele/Simon Kinberg reimagining -- will be available to stream on Paramount+, but when the series was conspicuously absent from the mountain (get it? Because Paramount?) of announcements made earlier today, fans started to suspect it was in trouble.

Update: The Hollywood Reporter has updated their original story to indicate that Paramount+ was still interested in more seasons. It was reportedly Kinberg and Peele who opted out of the deal. It isn't clear whether that could mean another Twilight Zone revival in the not-too-distant future, although it seems unlikely to happen right away.

The series went into development in 2017, as Peele's Get Out was conquering the horror world. By the time he served as the narrator on the revival, he was a household name, having stirred up the conventional Oscar narrative by getting a horror movie made by a person of color seriously considered in a few categories.

"Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg and the entire production team truly reimagined The Twilight Zone for the modern age," Paramount+ head of programming Julie McNamara told The Hollywood Reporter, who first broke the news. "They upheld the classic series' legacy of socially conscious storytelling and pushed today's viewers to explore all new dimensions of thought-provoking and topical themes that we hope will resonate with audiences for years to come."

Peele served as the announcer and executive producer of the series, plus wrote a season two episode. Because of his pedigree, he was able to attract some of the most notable talent in TV and film to join him for a week at a time, with the season 2 guest cast includeing Morena Baccarin, Kylie Bunbury, Jenna Elfman, Ethan Embry, Sky Ferreira, Tavi Gevinson, Topher Grace, Tony Hale, Gillian Jacobs, David Krumholtz, Thomas Lennon, Sophia Macy, Natalie Martinez, Joel McHale, Chris Meloni, Gretchen Mol, Paula Newsome, Billy Porter, Jimmi Simpson, Jurnee Smollett, Daniel Sunjata, Damon Wayans Jr., and others.

The original The Twilight Zone series premiered on October 2, 1959, on CBS. The series offered viewers a window into another dimension, not only of sight and sound but of mind. The show became a worldwide phenomenon and continues to be a seminal work of televised storytelling, casting lights on issues of humanity's hopes, despairs, pride and prejudices via metaphor and tales of morality.

The Twilight Zone was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Peele's Monkeypaw Productions and Kinberg's Genre Films. In addition to Peele and Kinberg, Win Rosenfeld, Audrey Chon, Alex Rubens, Glen Morgan, Carol Serling, and Rick Berg also served as executive producers.