Anytime a brand new fantasy series drops, subscribers everywhere roll their eyes and grit their teeth, because there’s a high chance they’re going to become invested in the story that follows, only to see it canceled beyond its time. However, The Gryphon has one major advantage over many of its contemporaries; it doesn’t air on Netflix.
Whereas the market leading platform has axed no less than 26 shows boasting fantastical conceits since the beginning of 2020, Prime Video has proven to be much more forgiving, with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power eying a five-season run, while The Wheel of Time was renewed for a third batch of episodes long before the second arrives in September.
Adapted from the cult favorite literary series of the same name that sold upwards of 40 million copies, The Gryphon follows a trio of misfits who stumble upon an otherworldly realm known as The Black Tower, where the titular monster subjugates all living creatures who dare stray into its territories.
As a German-language original, it hasn’t made quite the same splash on the zeitgeist that many on-demand exclusives rooted in magic and mayhem tend to do, but that hasn’t prevented it from immediately become one of the most-watched titles on its home service. Per FlixPatrol, The Gryphon is the second most-watched TV show on Prime Video’s global rankings after cracking the Top 10 in 82 countries around the world, which puts it behind only the $300 million turd Citadel.
That’s not bad going at all, but it’s a renewal that would mark the icing on the cake.