Chloë Grace Moretz in the now-cancelled Amazon series 'Peripheral' By Sophie Mutevelian
It's hard in a culture to get abolition of war, especially when it's more than a snub on social media. Amazon ditching the TV version of A League of Their Own and its sci-fi drama Peripheral has been seen by keyboard warriors as an anti-revival victory or an anti-gay witch hunt. Meanwhile, Amazon is blaming strikes in Hollywood. The truth is much more complex and suggests that many high-profile TV shows on streamers are on the verge of shutting down or cutting their budgets. There will be even more bloodletting.
A League of Their Own was based on the 1992 Tom Hanks baseball film, in which Madonna acted so wooden that she could be mistaken for one of the bats. The TV reboot was co-written by Abbi Jacobson as Carson Shaw, who joins the 1940s women's baseball team while her husband is fighting in the Pacific and has a secret affair with the glamorous Greta Gill, played by D'Arcy Carden.
Peripheral was created by Westworld's Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and follows Chloe Grace Moretz's mercenary Flynn Fisher as she lives in the not too distant future and discovers a virtual reality game set in the year 2022. London is not a game, and the people she kills are real Londoners from the past. Trans cop Alexandra Billings plays the trans cop.
Both series were renewed for a second season and were due to enter production this year and release in 2024. Fans of the show were quick to jump to conclusions: «The reason why an incredible show with an amazing cast and great script didn't even get confirmed for a MONTHS renewal despite its fantastic ratings and then got canceled at the first opportunity: it was a LESBIAN show with LESBIAN principals.» #RenewALOTO heroes,” one X user tweeted. Meanwhile, Breitbart News hailed Amazon's cancellation of «reviving 'A League of Their Own' after one season, the last 'weird' series to fail.»
An anonymous Hollywood strategist who blogs under the handle EntertainmentStrategyGuy thinks both sides are wrong and blaming Amazon for the strikes is disingenuous. “Never cancel a show that will make you money,” he explains. “If the show is popular, you will keep it on the air no matter what the cost. A strike is a great opportunity to cut costs and not offend talent. Of course, this probably contributes a small amount — say 25 percent — to the cause, but these shows were at their peak. I mean, who orders 4 episodes of the second season like Amazon did with A League of Their Own? It took four episodes to complete the case.»
Amazon's Own League Credit: Alami
A David Mancherje, founder of Televisionstats .com points to gay TV shows like Red White & Royal Blue and Heartstopper top the Amazon and Netflix charts respectively, proving that the audience is really engaged when the scripts are good.
In the US, the League ranked in the top 10 of Nielsen's streamer rankings for two weeks in 2022 and was ranked 133rd out of 252 shows ranked in the top 10. The Peripheral was in the top 10 for one week and peaked at number 205.
“Streamers are struggling with the hangover of their pre-Covid binge,” says Ed Waller, editor-in-chief of the C21 television bible. “A lot of money has been spent on deals with famous showrunners, but the results are not impressive. These cancellations are likely to be the first of many. Author's prestige dramas that win an Emmy but don't have audiences don't look good anymore.»
According to EntertainmentStrategyGuy, there is no incentive to launch another season of underperforming big-budget shows as the streamer bubble is about to burst. The League had expensive intellectual property, and period dramas are expensive, while sci-fi shows cost streamers a lot of money: “I was just talking to a streamer guy about a sci-fi show and he said; «It was cheap for us, only $5 million per episode.» Previously, $5 million was too expensive for anyone. Engagement of sci-fi fans is very high, but this does not lead to subscriptions among customers.»
Evan Rachel Wood in the World Wild West Photo: HBO/Kobal/Shutterstock
Sci-fi fans are notorious for their outrage, in part because strong fan campaigns have been saving endangered or canceled sci-fi since 1968, when Star Trek fans Bio and John Trimble staged a blitz letter upon learning the show was in danger. Since then, shows like Jericho, Joss Whedon's space cowboy series Firefly, and NBC's Quantum Leap have been given a second chance thanks to fan pressure.
Amazon itself is in the form of responding to such protests, picking up the cult TV series The Expanse when Syfy dropped it in 2018. Campaigners have gone to extreme lengths, including chartering a plane to fly over an Amazon studio with a «Save Space» banner. This is a lesson for the #RenewALOTO, #SaveThePeripheral gangs — social media hasn't saved shows like Westworld, Never, Shantaram, Willow and Lockwood & Co.
Indeed, when Netflix canceled Warrior Nun in December 2022, in which a teenage orphan joined a sect of demon-hunting nuns, the outrage generated over a million protest tweets and a petition with thousands of signatures. Somehow the streamer remained motionless. In June, creator Simon Barry stated that the film was in development, but no further details were given.
“Fan engagement on Peripheral has been pretty high,” says Mancherier, whose data startup measures traffic, social media, torrents, website visitors and searches the web for individual shows. One key metric for him is his activity on subreddits, online discussion groups hosted by the social news site Reddit. “The cancellation will lead to a dramatic increase in activity on the Peripheral subreddit,” he explains. «But the League doesn't seem to have a fan subreddit at all.»
It's not been a great summer for Hollywood, but it's been especially bad for new seasons of streamer dramas. Shows like The Witcher and Jack Reacher fared poorly, posting huge rating declines. Best Performer? Suits, a 2011 legal drama that ran for nine seasons, starred Meghan Markle as a paralegal with a powerful father.
“Streamers are trying to get two things: content that attracts customers and drives subscriptions, and, on the other hand, shows that have a lot of episodes that customers get addicted to and stay,” says EntertainmentStrateyGuy. Suits, Manifesto, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds and Friends all bring them great business. We're seeing shows being stopped before they even start — like Apple canceling Metropolis — and [Disney CEO] Bob Iger says he'll expand the Marvel TV show development schedule so they do fewer shows a year.
Ironically, the only thing that could make these shows cheaper and keep them on the air would be to use more artificial intelligence. But this is the purpose of the strike, so who knows?”
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