On paper, Netflix‘s decision to acquire Mark Millar’s Millarworld in a multi-million dollar deal made a great amount of sense, with the streaming service immediately gaining access to a raft of prospective comic book adaptations that couldn’t be found anywhere else.
However, things didn’t exactly get off to the greatest of starts when Jupiter’s Legacy found itself suffering through a tumultuous production that saw the budget balloon to an estimated $200 million, only for apathetic reviews and underwhelming viewing figures leading to its cancellation mere weeks after it premiered, anointing it as the streaming service’s biggest-ever flop by some distance.
The second live-action offering from Millarworld is almost upon us, with The Chosen One set to release this coming Wednesday, Aug. 16. And yet, you’d hardly know given that so far there’s only been a single teaser trailer dropped over a month ago, not exactly the level of backing you’d expect from a fantastical comic book series hailing from the biggest platform in the business.
There’s already a belief The Chosen One‘s days are numbered, which is an indictment of Netflix’s reputation for unveiling splashy new shows and then killing them off almost immediately, while the content itself – not to mention the involvement of Tenoch Huerta – could be detrimental to a story where a 12 year-old boy wakes up one day to discover that he’s developed superpowers an awful lot like those bandied around by a certain Jesus Christ.
Whether it sinks or swims remains to be seen, but Netflix could at least remind people it exists.