The ongoing discourse surrounding Netflix’s rampant cancellation of high-profile fantasy shows is completely warranted and entirely justified when so many of them cultivate dedicated fandoms almost overnight, but it’s hard to see anything imploding on the same scale and to the same extent as Jupiter’s Legacy ever again.
While Shadow and Bone supporters are mounting a guerrilla warfare campaign against the algorithm in an effort to hoodwink the platform into renewing it for another season, Sweet Tooth was given a rare stay of execution after the streamer announced a third run of episodes with the caveat it would be the last, all while Warrior Nun‘s Halo Bearers are left on the outside looking in.
However, Jupiter’s Legacy is in a league of its own. Netflix purchased the entirety of Mark Millar’s Millarworld with designs on crafting an expansive shared universe, only for the would-be flagship to run up a production budget of $200 million after countless creative reshuffles and rewrites led to a tortured production, only for the eight episodes to land with a dull thud.
In the most embarrassing comedown in the company’s episodic existence, though, Jupiter’s Legacy was officially canceled only 25 days after it premiered, even more damning when the one and only season ended on a cliffhanger deliberately designed to set up additional adventures.
Netflix may have canceled upwards of 20 fantasy shows since the beginning of 2020 alone, but something is going to have to go diabolically wrong for a mistake on a similar – or even comparable – scale to come around for a second time.
Completely against its will, Jupiter’s Legacy has even found itself trending on social media due to widespread shock at how much it actually cost, as well as the revelation for some subscribers that it’s genuinely a thing that exits as part of the content library.