By all accounts, Netflix took a sizeable hit on Jupiter’s Legacy, matters that weren’t helped by the comic book adaptation suffering from so much creative turmoil behind the scenes. Indeed, various reports have detailed the scheduling and personnel issues faced by the short-lived series, which directly led to the budget snowballing as high as $200 million, an astronomical amount for eight episodes of television.
The streaming service’s first stab at utilizing the Millarworld property that cost over $30 million to acquire didn’t end well, then, despite Jupiter’s Legacy spending a decent amount of time in the Top 10 most-watched list and pulling in strong ratings for at least the first two weeks it was available to stream.
The entire Millarworld experiment has now been refitted into an anthology franchise, with a live-action Supercrooks show announced to be in development almost immediately after Jupiter’s Legacy was binned, which evidently wasn’t the plan when Netflix already commissioned an animated version that’s expected to premiere later this year.
In a new interview, star Josh Duhamel voiced his disappointment at the generational superhero saga ending so soon, and even outlined that he’d love it if Netflix were to make a Jupiter’s Legacy movie to tell the entirety of the planned season 2 story in a couple of hours.
“You know, it’s just disappointing, I’m not gonna lie. We all worked very hard on that and promoted it very hard and thought we made a really good show, and I think with the audience, it performs so well and continues to do really well. We were a little bit surprised by it not getting renewed. For me, I never saw it going more than two or three seasons because that would have fulfilled whatever graphic novels were written for it. And that second season was going to be so much fun because it had the makings of this modern tragedy where some pretty dark stuff happens to The Utopian.
And I was excited creatively to do that. I’m not sure the reasoning for it. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have done it, and I think we all did a really good job on it. But this is the way of the business, you take your lumps. I don’t know if we’re ever going to see him The Utopian again. Though it sure would have been fun to do that second season. I think they should do a feature, just encapsulating what would have happened in the second season. Not do the full season, but just a feature. I don’t know if they’ll do it or not, but all those costumes are ready to go. And they weren’t cheap, I’ll tell you that much.”
The actor is right in lamenting that the impressive costumes and detailed sets are just going to sit there being of no use to anyone, but it’s hard to imagine a standalone Jupiter’s Legacy movie getting the green light. After all, Netflix already funnelled a ton of money into the project and didn’t see a return on their investment, so it’s very unlikely to happen unless something drastic changes.