Netflix Cancels New Mike Judge Series Mid-Production
Mike Judge has been busy lately, with the return of Beavis and Butt-Head, first in a streaming movie and then in a new TV series, both available on Paramount+. And along with Greg Daniels, his co-creator on King of the Hill, he was executive producing another animated series for Netflix called Bad Crimes — but now that series has been canceled in the middle of production, before a single episode had made it to air (or streaming).
That’s the word from TheWrap, who note that Bad Crimes “hailed from Nicole Silverberg, a veteran of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and was set to star Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus as a pair of FBI agents who travel across the country solving murders.” They cite an anonymous source who claimed “the cancellation is a reflection of the changed needs of the streamer’s slate following a change in leadership.”
The news about Bad Crimes comes a few months after Netflix similarly pulled the plug on the highly-anticipated animated series Bone, based on the award-winning children’s comics by Jeff Smith. That series had been announced with a lot of fanfare back in 2019 with the enthusiastic backing and support of Smith himself. Three years later, with no episodes produced, Netflix ended development on the series around the same time they were reporting some rough financial results to their stockholders.
These moves also arrive at a time when similar announcements (or reports following behind-the-scenes moves) have been made at various streaming groups following years of unfettered growth and inordinate spending. HBO Max canceled an entire Batgirl movie after it had already been shot at a reported cost of some $75 million. (That move also came after changes in corporate leadership, following HBO’s acquisition by Discovery.) The days of non-stop new programming at streaming services may be coming to an end.