Matthew Weiner could not capture lightning in a bottle twice. The Romanoffs, the Mad Men creator’s follow-up to his acclaimed series, was among three shows Amazon canceled. Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke said the anthology series, as well as Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young and the spy drama The Patriot will not be back for new seasons.
Too Old to Die Young and The Romanoffs will both be ending after just one season. Patriot is ending after two seasons, reports The Wrap.
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The Romanoffs was an anthology series centered on different people who believe they are descendants of the Russian royal family. Although headlined by a stacked cast, including Mad Men alums Christina Hendricks, Cara Buono, John Slattery and Jay R. Ferguson, the show was met with a muted response from critics. The eight-episode series failed to earn a single Emmy nomination, a far cry from awards-magnet Mad Men.
Too Old to Die Young is being canceled barely a month after all 10 episodes were released on June 14. The crime drama was created by Refn, the filmmaker behind The Neon Demon and Drive, and Ed Brubaker. The cast included Miles Teller, Jena Malone and John Hawkes.
Steve Conrad’s Patriot starred Michael Dorman as an intelligence officer who takes an unofficial cover mission. The series ran 18 episodes, with the final batch released in November 2018. The show earned positive reviews from critics, but flew too far under the radar to earn awards attention.
Amazon Studios did not reveal the viewership numbers for any of these shows, per their usual policy. During the Television Critics Association press tour, Salke told The Wrap they have no intention of following in Netflix’s footsteps. Netflix will occasionally release data for its most popular shows, and numbers have been revealed in earnings reports.
“We talk about this all the time. I came from the network business… where you’re used to being able to go out and talk about success in viewership numbers,” Salke told The Wrap. “Our company doesn’t embrace that strategy. We agree that it’s not a strategy for us. We know what the numbers are.”
She continued, “We’ll talk about the success of our shows and sort of single out shows that are over-performing, but we’ve yet to embrace a strategy across the company where we want to get out with actual numbers.”
Amazon’s stance on not releasing data even extends to the producers of shows it releases. Amazon TV co-head Alrbert Cheng said they do not share “absolute numbers” with showrunners.
Photo credit: Amazon Studios
