Netflix has cancelled Jupiter’s Legacy after just one eight-episode season that only just premiered on May 7, but the streaming service isn't giving up on Mark Millar's Millarworld just yet. Jupiter's Legacy will now be reworked into an anthology, with Supercrooks coming to live-action as the next Mark Millar adaptation.
The entire principal cast of Jupiter’s Legacy and their terrible wigs have been released from their contracts, and you get the distinct impression that pivoting towards an anthology model so soon was never the platform’s plan having initially shelled out over $30 million to acquire Millarworld in the first place, of which Jupiter’s Legacy was the very first project. Indeed, THR's Borys Kit reports that the first season of Jupiter's Legacy as a whole cost a whopping $200 million, but the show failed to pick up the kind of buzz the streaming service was hoping for.
While the generational saga managed to spend some time hovering around the upper echelons of the Netflix most-watched charts, reviews were generally mixed across the board. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger setting up the next batch of episodes, but subscribers won’t be getting the chance to see how it all plays out.
Supercrooks does take place in the same mythology as Jupiter’s Legacy, so it’s a lateral move in storytelling terms, with Millar releasing a statement shortly after the news broke expressing his excitement about bringing the comic into live-action, with an animated version already in the works for Netflix as part of the Millarworld deal.
“I’m really proud of what the team achieved with Jupiter’s Legacy and the amazing work everyone did on that origin season. I’ve been asked a lot about what we’re planning next with this world, and the answer is to see what the supervillains are getting up to. I’ve always loved crime stories, from Scorsese to Tarantino, and supervillains 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.”
Supercrooks follows a disparate band of supervillains, con artists and thieves who team up to plan the heist of the century in what can be sweepingly surmised as Ocean’s Eleven meets X-Men, and Netflix will be hoping the second stab at Millarworld lasts at least a little longer than the first, especially when numerous other titles are in various stages of development including The Magic Order, American Jesus, Empress, Huck, Sharkey the Bounty Hunter, and Prodigy.