Shawn Levy, the prolific producer-director behind Night at the Museum and Ryan Reynolds’ upcoming movie Free Guy, still holds out hope that I Am Not Okay With This could be revived in some way, but there are no plans to. The coming-of-age comedy, based on Charles Forsman’s comic book, earned critical acclaim for its first season on Netflix. Sadly, the show was canceled after just one, seven-episode season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
I Am Not Okay With This starred Sophia Lillis as Sydney Novak, a teenager with telekinetic powers, while Wyatt Oleff played her friend, Stan Barber. The series was developed by Jonathan Entwistle and Chrisyu Hall, with Levy serving as one of the executive producers. The show ended with a cliffhanger, which made its cancellation hurt even more for fans of the show.
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Levy was disappointed with how the series ended too, but he told Collider there were no plans to continue the story. There are “dreams of a comeback in some form or format,” but there is “no current plan” for a revival. He called the experience a “heartbreaker of a lesson” and compared the show’s lack of success to Dash & Lily, another short-lived series he executive produced for Netflix. Dash and Lily earned critical acclaim too, but only ran eight episodes.
“It’s a reminder that sometimes you can make something really good and do your job right and still have no control over viewership or box office and outcome,” Levy told Collider. “So that’s one of those shows, like Dash and Lily, which just won a bunch of Daytime Emmys where it’s like we, and the team at 21 Laps, feel like we made the show we promised. We made the show we wanted. Not enough people watched and it is a cruel metric in the age of the streaming wars. And sometimes, if you don’t get the eyeballs, you don’t get to make more of the thing. That’s what happened there.”
In August 2020, Netflix announced it was canceling both I Am Not Okay With This and The Society because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the case of The Society, it had already been renewed for a second season when Netflix decided not to make more episodes. “We’ve made the difficult decision not to move forward with second seasons of The Society and I Am Not Okay With This,” Netflix said at the time. “We’re disappointed to have to make these decisions due to circumstances created by COVID, and we are grateful to these creators, including Jonathan Entwistle, Christy Hall, Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen and Josh Barry at 21 Laps Entertainment for I Am Not Okay With This; Chris Keyser, Marc Webb and Pavlina Hatoupis for The Society; and all the writers, casts and crews who worked tirelessly to make these shows for our members around the world.”
Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment is still in business with Netflix. The company is also behind Shadow and Bone, based on the books by Leigh Bardugo. The fantasy series was picked up for a second season, which is still on track, Levy told Collider. As for Levy’s latest film, Free Guy, it finally hits theaters on Aug. 13.
