The cancellation of Jupiter's Legacy this week, or at least the confirmation that there won't be a second season, but rather a connected show called Supercrooks, wasn't too unexpected. In part, that's because we've gotten used to Netflix canceling shows, even though they seem to do well in the app's top ten spots. But Jupiter's Legacy wasn't popular with critics either, though we felt a second season had a lot of potential depending on how the first season ended. According to Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter, the show cost two hundred million US dollars. It also took a long time to arrive: the images of the program were already leaked in the month of July of XNUMX. It was a massive commitment to a partially unknown group of superheroes, and it clearly didn't pay enough for Netflix to walk away. coming up with a second season. So what went wrong? Frankly, this week's announcement is very confusing. Notably, Deadline's exclusive story about the disappearance of Jupiter's Legacy never uses the word "void" or "void," but releasing actors from their contracts and not doing a second season is essentially the definition of a show. We're not against the idea of another show set in the same cosmos and turning Jupiter's Legacy into an anthology. But it's hard not to wonder: if this series was truly successful, wouldn't Netflix do more? Author Mark Millar has expressed confidence that they will return to Jupiter's Legacy in the future, with Deadline citing sources that they may return in a different form. Once again, though: Netflix had a choice to make more of that show and chose not to.
Too much superhero content?
(Image credit: Netflix) It's pretty hard not to wonder if Jupiter's Legacy was a year late for the market. In a world where we now have two mandatory and expensive Marvel TV shows on Disney Plus, one good and one with more mixed results, the Netflix show has faced stark comparisons to more iconic superheroes.
Small-screen comic book adaptations have come a long way since XNUMX, when Arrow was almost the only game in town, and Netflix was competing with a streamer that has impressively deep pockets and characters that viewers are already invested in.
TV shows Superheroes quickly morphed into an arms race between streamers, with HBO Max approval shows from the Green Lantern, Batman, and Suicide Squad universes. Marvel, meanwhile, seems so committed to making its TV shows work like in their movies. Altogether, we expect 6 MCU shows to launch this year, with Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel tentatively scheduled for late XNUMX. It's a busy crowd, and that's not even counting every single Arrowverse show, like The Flash and Superman and Lois.
The Jupiter legacy, then, could not be fully sustained, with thirty-eight% positive reviews from Rotten Tomatoes critics.
In truth, we don't think superhero saturation is the downside, just look at how popular Invincible has become on Amazon Prime Video, turning heads with its gory twists and infused visual flair. However, this one had the distinction of being a massive set of names and being based on a popular comic with fifteen years of history.
The source material for Jupiter's Legacy is strong enough material for an adaptation, at a glance. Millar has enjoyed almost unparalleled success as a modern comics author, working with some of the best artists on the planet. Jupiter's Legacy was a cooperation with Frank Quitely, probably the best superhero artist of his generation. The term, generational superheroes and the challenges of passing the torch, is fairly new and not something we've seen adapted to the screen before. On paper, it should have worked.
Ultimately, only Netflix knows why Jupiter's Legacy isn't worth putting off, and the streamer is only renowned for viewership numbers when talking about its heavy hitters. According to Nielsen (through THR), which measures ratings in the US based on a sample audience, Jupiter's Legacy was the most aired show in its first week. six hundred and ninety-six million minutes were viewed on May XNUMX (program started on May XNUMX).
That number does not sound so bad, but it does not tell us how many people finished watching the full program or gave up after one or two episodes, which is of limited use.
It's pretty hard to say what audiences made of Jupiter's Legacy as a whole and how much the show has grown in a broader cultural sense. At a glance, the show had a fairly low user score of 106,000 on IMDb from plus or minus XNUMX with zero users, compared to XNUMX for The Falcon and Winter Soldier from XNUMX users. On Rotten Tomatoes, however, they each have an identical user score of seventy-two. There's not much to learn from this, and we'd expect a Marvel show to attract more user votes than a new Netflix offering.
For the record, it doesn't seem like the show has achieved quite the same cultural cachet as another Netflix hit like Bridgerton or Cobra Kai, or HBO's recent Mare of Easttown; to be clear, we do not base this on any data. But it doesn't feel like the show has exploded culturally like The Boys did for Amazon Prime Video in XNUMX, another show based on non-Marvel and DC superhero ownership.
Sometimes these things take on a life of their own, like the gifs of Helmut Zemo dancing at a disco.
What does this say about Netflix?
(Image credit: Netflix) Whenever Netflix cancels a show, the responses on social media are the same: why invest in a new Netflix series if it just cancels it? In the case of Jupiter's Legacy, certain viewers expressed frustration that Netflix let the series end on a cliffhanger without committing to filling out the story. Seems like a fair review. Why not fill the series if you're not sure you can afford the money to fill the story? Ever since Netflix has listed two high-profile dramas in a row in The Irregulars and Jupiter's Legacy, its approach to cancellations has been in the spotlight more than ever. From a subscriber perspective, there's a clear disappointment in investing in a show and then seeing it get cut. One wonders how well Netflix sets the bar for success, and whether it makes a difference if a show slowly finds an audience over time, especially since The Irregulars and Jupiter's Legacy got the hatchet just weeks after their releases. beginning. An interesting test is going to be Netflix's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics, a series that carries considerably more cultural imprint than the Jupiter's Legacy comics. We know this is going to be an expensive show, just depending on the fan. It has the double advantage of being based on a decades-old acclaimed comic and the work of a popular Gaiman writer. On a purely relatable brand level, it gives Netflix some comic book stuff that could really stand out, especially when the next few years are awash with Marvel and DC TV shows. It's not really a superhero show either, and between that latest cancellation and the release of its Marvel shows a few years back, it seems Netflix hasn't made a huge impact on this genre yet. Hey, maybe the planet of Jupiter's Legacy will truly hold its own with a second series from a villain's perspective. For us, we wish Netflix had gone with a second season of this show he invested so much in, just so we could see if he could really find his feet creatively, but it clearly wasn't meant to be.