Fans of The Devil were heartbroken when Fox pulled the plug on ‘Lucifer‘ before Netflix became their saving grace and renewed the show but until now we’ve never heard why the show was exorcised from the network. The main reason came about during this year’s Television Critics Association Summer press tour which is also where we learned why Netflix saved the series.
chairman and CEO of Fox Television Group Dana Walden explains why ‘Lucifer’ ended up being pulled off the air saying:
“We had a great time working with that cast and the executive producers of the show. It worked well for us. [But] as we were going into this season, we looked at the size of the audience, which was starting to get pretty narrow. We just made a determination that given … it was owned by an outside studio, at the time we couldn’t justify the economics. It was not an inexpensive show, and we just made a decision that ultimately it wasn’t performing to a broad enough audience in a way that worked for us.
We thought a lot about [the decision to cancel the show]. It was a lot of conversations.”
With the fact that the series was “owned by an outside studio” I feel it would be a safe bet to say that even if the outpouring of support for the series on social media had been twice as loud that they wouldn’t have picked it back up. Thankfully, the creators of ‘Lucifer’ ended up having a streaming giant in their corner and were able to pull off that last minute resurrection.
Now, they just need to prove that they can keep, at the very least, their old audience numbers.
Are you happy that Netflix was able to save ‘Lucifer’ from Fox canceling the series? Do you feel that it was ratings or ownership that became the main sticking issue for the company? Share your thoughts below!
Source: TV Guide