As expected, Netflix‘s hot new superhero series Jupiter’s Legacy has been a big hit, topping the streaming service’s most-watched list shortly after the first season premiered on May 7th, and staying there for several weeks after. Indeed, there were a lot of people who found themselves drawn to the show, but reviews across the board have been a bit mixed.
Despite this, many assumed that a second season was still a lock. After all, Netflix didn’t drop $31 million to purchase Mark Millar’s Millarworld company without having some serious plans in store for the IP, and while it seems that they do indeed hope to do more with this particular universe, what they have in the works is a bit bittersweet.
Deadline reports tonight that season 2 of Jupiter’s Legacy is not going ahead, with the streaming giant releasing the cast from their contracts. “It will not continue as an ongoing series,” says the outlet. However, to soften the blow, Netflix have announced spinoff Supercrooks, an adaptation of “the superpowered heist comic about eight super-villains written by Millar and drawn by Leinil Francis Yu, which will be released later this year.”
So, like we said, a bit bittersweet. We won’t be getting a second season of Jupiter’s Legacy – at least, not anytime soon – but we’ll still be seeing more from this world and Supercrooks does indeed sound like an intriguing project and one that could find a big audience on Netflix when it debuts.
“I’m really proud of what the team achieved with Jupiter’s Legacy and the amazing work everyone did on that origin season,” Millar said on Twitter. “I’ve been asked a lot about what we’re planning next with this world and the answer is to see what the super-villains are getting up to. I’ve always loved crime stories from Scorsese to Tarantino and super-villains are always the most fun part of any superhero story. To do something exclusively focused on the villains they fight just feels incredibly fresh as we explore what it’s like to be a bad guy in a world crawling with good guys who want to put you in jail.
Jupiter’s Legacy is a vast and rich space with lots of characters to mine and so I’m happy to share that our next step here is a live-action version of the Supercrooks comic I created with Leinil Francis Yu a few years back. Given where we’re going next, we’ve made the tough call of letting our incredible cast out of their show commitment as we continue to thoughtfully develop all realms of the Jupiter’s Legacy saga. We’re confident we’ll return to it later and just want to say thanks to you guys for your continued support and to the cast and crew who made this look so great.”
As we mentioned above, Jupiter’s Legacy was far from a perfect show, but it did lay the groundwork quite nicely for follow-up seasons and no doubt many subscribers were hoping to see more from it. But alas, it wasn’t to be and for now, fans will have to be content with a spinoff and keep their fingers crossed that maybe one day, Netflix will see value in bringing the cast from the series back for another run.