The past year may have brought renewals for Squid Game and Dahmer and debuts of fan-favorite titles like Wednesday, but 2022 hasn’t been a great year for fans of several popular Netflix original series. A streaming library that once boasted everything from Warrior Nun to Archive 81 and The Baby-Sitters Club has dwindled amid a string of cancellations throughout the past year that has prompted plenty of outrage and even threats from subscribers to cancel their subscriptions. Now, viewers are finally getting some insight into the streamer’s cancellation decision-making process.
In a recent interview with Variety, Netflix executive Peter Friedlander opened up about the round of recent cancellations that have battered 2022. Asked for “any more insight you have on why these shows didn’t work out,” Friedlander admitted that “cancellations are the hardest part of this job and when I think about the work that both the creators and all the people at Netflix put into them, we care passionately about them.” Friedlander said cancellations are “not something that we take lightly,” before adding, “it’s just a frustrating part of the job that’s been a part of our business forever.” While he said “this isn’t a new experience to have cancellations,” he expressed hope that “we can continue to bring in shows that continue.”
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While some of the cancellations were due to obvious reasons – The Midnight Club was axed after just a single season as director Mike Flanagan signed a new deal with Amazon’s Prime Video as his Netflix deal came to an end – others have been truly dumbfounding. Titles like Archive 81, Raising Dion, First Kill, and the recently-canceled Warrior Nun all made it into Netflix’s Top 10 streaming charts, many of them ranking on the list for several weeks before Netflix ultimately decided to cancel them, too. According to Friedlander, while those Top 10 charts do have some sway when it comes to deciding whether or not a series will be renewed, those charts are one of just many factors that go into the decision-making process.
“I think the Top 10 is a useful tool for people to find shows, discover shows, talk about shows and also helps you for viewing. The Top 10 really serves in that way, and I think that’s something that speaks to the popularity in that moment, and I think that’s what it’s really about in that moment,” he shared. “And then when we have to make our decisions, it’s about the long term and the longer term viewing. We always are looking at many variables, too. The Top 10 is just one variable in that.”
Friedlander’s comments came amid current outrage surrounding the cancellation of the Simon Barry-created drama series Warrior Nun, which the streamer canceled earlier this week after just two seasons. A current online fan campaign is calling for the show to be renewed, with Barry sharing on social media they are working “to find out if there’s a path to moving [Warrior Nun] somewhere else.”
