Netflix Canceling A Fan-Favorite Series After Just One Season
Netflix has done an outstanding job regarding the release of horror-themed titles, several of which come from the mind of Mike Flanagan, who had an all-over deal with the streamer. Screen Rant has reported that Netflix has canceled the fan-favorite title The Midnight Club after only one season.
The Netflix original series The Midnight Club is based on a book by Christopher Pike, who is well-known for his young adult fiction works, which are mystery thrillers and supernatural horror.
The series is an adaptation of Pike’s book from the mind of Mike Flanagan. The Netflix series, The Midnight Club, follows eight terminally ill young adults who live in the hospice facility Brightcliffe Home, located just outside Seattle, Washington.
The young adults created the club and meet each night at midnight to share scary stories, most of which are depicted on-screen. The club made a pact that whoever is the first to die from their illness will be responsible for finding a way to communicate with the club from beyond the grave.
When Netflix ordered The Midnight Club series from Flanagan, it was intended to break the mold of previous Netflix/Flanagan series and continue for several seasons. But according to Screen Rant, that is no longer the case.
The announcement that Netflix canceled The Midnight Club was reported shortly after Deadline reported that Mike Flanagan and his creative partner Trevor Macy announced they would be moving their Intrepid Pictures from Netflix to partner with Amazon Studios.
This deal will see Flanagan and Macy develop and produce new projects that will exclusively air on Prime Video. Similar to the deal they previously had with Netflix that saw the development of many unique and wildly successful projects, including The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Maner, Midnight Mass, and more.
The Netflix series The Midnight Club co-creator Leah Fong also served as showrunner and worked on The Haunting of Bly Manor, another Flanagan series. But this one didn’t receive the viewership as other Flanagan projects have, likely leading to the cancelation. The worst part for fans is that the first season ended on a significant cliffhanger that will never be resolved.
One fun fact reported by Deadline for Netflix’s The Midnight Club is that the first episode did break a record. This series broke the Guinness World Record for the most jump scares in a single episode, with 21 jump scares in the first episode alone.
Another of Pike’s stories, The Season of Passage, was optioned for an adaptation by Flanagan for Netflix. In October 2022, soon after the release of The Midnight Club, Flanagan revealed that the series would last multiple seasons, with the young adults telling stories from other books written by Pike. He announced that 28 of Pike’s books were included in the deal.
Losing Flanagan, Macy, and their Intrepid Pictures will be a significant blow to the development of fantastic horror projects on Netflix. The Midnight Club was one of many original projects from Intrepid Pictures and the only series not to set records on the streamer.
