Netflix swaps Jupiter’s Legacy for Supercrooks
James R | On 03, Jun 2021
Jupiter’s Legacy will not return to Netflix for a second season, with the streaming giant instead pivoting to go in a different direction with the project.
The Millarworld series followed the world’s first generation of superheroes look to their children to continue their legacy, after nearly a century of keeping humankind safe. But tensions rise as the young superheroes, hungry to prove their worth, struggle to live up to their parents’ legendary public reputations — and exacting personal standards.
It premiered on 7th May but less than a month later, the streaming giant has already taken the decision to release the cast from their contracts, effectively cancelling the show by any other name – with an eye to instead turn the franchise into anthology.
And so, while Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb, Ben Daniels and more have been released from their commitments, Netflix has greenlit a live-action adaptation of Millarworld’s Supercrooks, which will form the next instalment in the overall franchise.
There is already an animated adaptation of Supercrooks on the way from Netflix, which will debut later this year. Supercrooks is a super-powered heist comic about eight supervillains, and characters from the comic books cross over between Supercrooks and Jupiter’s Legacy – although there’s no indication yet whether any of the characters from the screen incarnation of Jupiter’s Legacy would be seen again.
“I’m really proud of what the team achieved with Jupiter’s Legacy and the amazing work everyone did on that origin season,” Millar said in a statement. “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.
“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,” Millar added. “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.”