Marvel's Runaways is being run off the air.
On Monday, November 18, Hulu announced that Runaways will end after its fast-approaching
third season, set to hit the Disney-owned streaming platform on December 13.
Deadline confirmed the news, further noting that fans will get closure with Runaways season
3, which is said to bring the narrative to a, quote, "natural close" and neatly wrap
up the story that follows six teen heroes whose parents belong to a coalition of super-villains.
So, what really happened to push Marvel TV and Hulu to axe the show?
Well, you can blame the numbers for that, it's always the numbers.
Sure, fans adored the show, and critics were kind to it, but Runaways was actually performing
worse than its fellow Marvel superhero series.
You know, the ones that were all canceled at Netflix between late 2018 and early 2019.
In a March 2019 data report, Business Insider provided analytics from Jumpshot that indicated
roughly 640,000 people watched the first season of Runaways in its first week on Hulu in November
2017, with 825,000 people tuning into the second season during its first week in December
2018.
That may sound like a lot of people, but it isn't.
Even the bumped-up viewership number for Marvel's Runaways season 2 was only about half the
amount of people who watched the least-viewed Marvel show on Netflix: the highly criticized
Iron Fist, which pulled in 1.6 million viewers in the first week after dropping its second
season.
Unsurprisingly, Runaways couldn't hold a candle to the most-watched Netflix-Marvel show at
the time, Daredevil, with 5.8 million week-one viewers for season 2.
"No!"
"That good, huh?"
"You sunk the 8-ball."
"Well…something went in."
Business Insider noted that despite rising interest from season 1 to season 2 of Marvel's
Runaways, neither installment ever reached the million-viewer mark in the first week.
This could be, as the outlet stated, down to declining viewership for all of Marvel's
streaming series.
Viewership trends that were "headed in the wrong direction" for the superhero series
on Netflix, followed by the rapid-fire cancelations of every single Marvel-Netflix show, may have
pushed more casual viewers away from Runaways, possibly because they feared the show would
soon suffer the same fate as Daredevil and the like.
Additionally, it isn't as though Runaways wasn't interesting or exciting.
Impressive reviews and a loyal fanbase prove the opposite, but the "diverging strategies"
that Netflix and Hulu implemented with their respective Marvel properties may have been
the downfall of the combined collection of superhero shows, Marvel's Runaways included.
Despite the show's low ratings, Hulu still renewed Runaways for a third season, though
it seems the streamer may have ordered those final 10 episodes with the knowledge that
they'd be the last ones people would ever watch.
On that note, it's been clear for quite some time now that Marvel Television is experiencing
major shake-ups.
The creation of Disney's streaming platform Disney+ meant that the Mouse House, which
owns Marvel Studios and its Marvel Television division, would be creating new original series
based on its gallery of superheroes, all to be produced by Marvel Studios, led by Marvel
Entertainment chief creative officer Kevin Feige, rather than Marvel Television, headed
up by executive vice president Jeph Loeb.
In an apparent effort to consolidate its various properties and bring them to one place, Marvel
previously cleared house at Netflix by pulling the plug on Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage,
Jessica Jones, and The Punisher.
With those shows done at Netflix, fans would surely have to turn elsewhere to get their
superhero series fix, and where better to look than the massive streamer that will be
home to a ton of Marvel shows?
Could Marvel Studios executives have chatted with the TV division and the folks at Hulu
about bringing Runaways to an end to further clear the path for Disney+'s Marvel universe
to thrive?
It's not out of the realm of reality.
"We're all that's left?"
"Hey, hey!
It's okay, alright?
We're gonna figure it out.
We have each other."
What also likely contributed to Marvel's Runaways getting axed is the fact that Jeph Loeb is
reportedly lined up to leave Marvel Television.
The Hollywood Reporter claims that Loeb, who has served as the executive VP of Marvel TV
since 2010, will make a formal announcement of his departure before the end of the month,
at some point ahead of Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 28.
With Runaways on its way out, there are only a handful of Loeb-produced Marvel series in
existence: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which will end with its upcoming seventh season; Hulu's
horror-themed Marvel show Helstrom; and four adult-oriented animated series.
It seems evident that Marvel Studios is taking over the television side of things from, well,
the actual television division of the company.
Marvel's Runaways isn't the only show to have become a casualty amid all this change, and
it sadly may not be the last.
Here's hoping that what Marvel Studios has planned with its Disney+ series will be worth
all the heartache of watching so many shows get snapped away, and that the few remaining
Marvel TV-backed projects live to see at least a few seasons.
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