Why Netflix Canceled The Midnight Club, According To Mike Flanagan
Netflix
Of course, after so much critical and commercial success, it sounded like a no-brainer to expand the “Flanaverse” by serving as a producer and writer on smaller projects while working towards his main courses. “The Midnight Club,” loosely adapted from the Christopher Pike novel of the same name, was Flanagan’s attempt at exactly that. The series followed a group of teenagers living in the Brightcliffe Home hospice care in the Pacific Northwest. To cope with their terminal illnesses, the teens frequently meet at midnight to share ghost stories. In theory, it was a snug fit into Flanagan’s horror canon in which he often emphasizes that death is just physical, and the human spirit lives on in the stories and memories we share with one another. But, between low viewership and an underwhelming critical response, it failed to make a strong impression.
A victim of Netflix’s shifting priorities
Flanagan and Trevor Macy’s Intrepid Pictures have spent the last four years with an overall deal to produce original shows for Netflix. During that time, they have noticed changes in the company’s strategy and approach to launching their new shows. Though he had confidence in the series, Flanagan knew that conceptually, it was going to be a harder sell to audiences:
Despite being logically prepared for the show to meet its end, Flanagan points out he was still saddened by the news. Shortly after the announcement, the writer/producer posted an essay on Tumblr about how the show would have progressed in season 2. For Flanagan, it was important to avoid leaving his hardcore fans in the dark.
“When we agreed to do ‘The Midnight Club,’ the entire company was very different. I think we both feel it’s safe to say that a show like that, which we thought was innovative and harder to classify, requires some pretty robust promotion to get off the ground properly, and Netflix’s strategy for promoting new shows has changed quite a bit. So we weren’t entirely surprised at all.”
No time to cry, Flanagan is onto the next one
Sony Pictures
“I love so many shows that have been canceled over the years, and I never got that closure with the story, I never got to see how they ended. So it was very important to us that we put that out for the fans to see what we would have done.”
If there’s one thing about Flanagan, it’s that he’s constantly working on the next big thing. As sad as the cancellation of “The Midnight Club” is, Flanagan still has plenty of high-profile horror projects heading our way. The new prospect of him taking on another classic Stephen King story is exciting, and we’re anticipatingly awaiting his take on the seemingly unadaptable source material of “The Dark Tower.”
