Netflix has canceled yet another popular series, with superhero drama Raising Dion killed off after its second season.
The news was broken by cast member Sammi Haney, who posted on Instagram that she was “Sad to say that Raising Dion is CANCELED ????????” before going on to thank fans for their support and point out that many of them wanted a third instalment of the show.
The decision is something of a surprise, given that Raising Dion scored a healthy 83% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, although an average audience score of 52% wasn’t quite so positive.
And, as Haney’s Instagram post made clear, it certainly found plenty of fans on Netflix, topping the streaming service’s U.S. top 10 when its second series aired in February this year and racking up millions of viewer hours in the process.
The Michael B Jordan-produced show was based on a 2015 comic book by Dennis Liu and followed 10-year-old Dion Warren (Ja’Siah Young) as he mysteriously gains superhero-like abilities. His single mom Nicole (Alisha Wainwright) attempts to help him manage his new powers and figure out their origin, while coping with the death of her husband. Haney played Esperanza Jimenez, Dion’s classmate and best friend.
It’s yet another addition to the list of Netflix canceled shows in 2022, following the likes of Archive 81, The Baby-Sitters Club, Gentefied and On the Verge.
Last week we also heard that a long-in-development animated adaptation of comic book series Bone has reportedly been canceled before the first episode aired and that a sequel to Will Smith’s movie Bright will not now be made.
Analysis: What exactly is Netflix’s strategy?
This cancelation is yet another puzzling one. As with Archive 81 and The Baby-Sitters Club, Raising Dion appeared to be popular with critics and to have found an audience on Netflix. If a show that’s both successful and highly rated is killed off prematurely, why should subscribers to what is still one of the best streaming services stick around?
Clearly, money could be an issue. We don’t know what Raising Dion’s budget was, but we do that Netflix is in trouble right now, having just lost subscribers for first time in over a decade and with predictions that things will get worse before they get better.
At the same time, we heard earlier this week that Netflix spent a reported $30m per episode on Stranger Things season 4; that’s $270m in total if true, which could possibly have impacted decisions on what other shows to cancel.
Of course that’s just one theory; Netflix has vast amounts of data about how shows are viewed, and most of it isn’t made public. Maybe Raising Dion had a retention issue or there was some other factor behind its demise.
What we do know is that at one stage, not that long ago, it was the no.1 show on U.S. Netflix — leaving us with more questions than answers and increasingly wondering whether there’s any point in watching a new series on Netflix.
There is one silver lining to Raising Dion’s cancellation, though: Haney’s Instagram post also pointed out her Netflix contract kept her from accepting other big roles, and that she’d now be free to take them on.
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