Despite having a huge cliffhanger ending at the end of its freshman run, Jupiter’s Legacy won’t be back for a season 2 on Netflix.
Though Jupiter’s Legacy was featured in the streamer’s top ten category for several days after its May 7th premiere, it seems that the high-profile superhero drama ― which carried a more expensive production scale ― didn’t meet Netflix’s expectations, resulting in its cancellation after just one season.
Based on the Image comic book series of the same name by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, Jupiter’s Legacy centers on the world’s first generation of superheroes as they look to their children to continue their legacy. But tensions rise as the young superheroes struggle to live up to their parents’ legendary public reputations and exacting personal standards.
In a statement posted on Twitter last week, Millar, who also served as writer and executive producer on the live-action series, revealed that the cast members have already been released from their show commitment, effectively pulling the plug on another season. And although Jupiter’s Legacy had already been canceled, Millar revealed that the Jupiter’s Legacy universe will continue on Netflix with a Supercrooks series.
“I’m really proud of what the team achieved with Jupiter’s Legacy and the amazing work everyone did on that origin season,” said Millar. “I’ve been asked a lot about what we’re planning next with this world and the answer is to see what the super-villains are getting up to. I’ve always loved crime stories from [Martin] Scorsese to [Quentin] Tarantino and super-villains are always the most fun part of any superhero story. To do something exclusively focused on the villains they fight just feels incredibly fresh as we explore what it’s like to be a bad guy in a world crawling with good guys who want to put you in jail.”
Millar continued: “Jupiter’s Legacy is a vast and rich space with lots of characters to mine and so I’m happy to share that our next step here is a live-action version of the Supercrooks comic I created with Leinil Francis Yu a few years back. Given where we’re going next, we’ve made the tough call of letting our incredible cast out of their show commitment as we continue to thoughtfully develop all realms of the Jupiter’s Legacy saga. We’re confident we’ll return to it later and just want to say thanks to you guys for your continued support and to the cast and crew who made this look so great.”
A follow-up tweet from Millar pointed out that Supercrooks will appear first as an anime series from Studio Bones later this year and will be previewed at the Annecy animation festival in France later this month.
One of the biggest cliffhangers from season 1 of Jupiter’s Legacy revolved around the character of Raikou (Anna Akana). At the end of the season, Raikou was viciously murdered by her father Walter/Brainwave (Ben Daniels) after she discovered that he was trying to plot against Utopian (Josh Duhamel) and attempted to blackmail him with the information. Since Raikou made her first appearance in season 1’s penultimate episode, a lot of fans were shocked that she died so soon. Akana, however, revealed that her character didn’t really pass away in the season 1 finale.
In a tweet, Akana wrote: “So gutted that Jupiter’s Legacy wasn’t a renewed for a 2nd season. I guess it’s now fine to spoil that Raikou actually isn’t dead – she created a mind palace, akin to Walter, in order to convince him she was no longer a threat. But for now – RIP Raikou & team!”
Prior to the announcement of the Supercrooks series, Netflix revealed that it was developing a live-action adaptation of Millar’s comics The Magic Order. However, Netflix chose not to move forward with the series due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but hopes to revisit the project in the future.”