National Treasure: Edge of History’ will not be returning for a second season on the streaming service Disney+.
According to the entertainment news outlet The Hollywood Reporter. The streamer has cancelled the show, just two months after the 10-episode series wrapped in early February.
It became one of only two Disney+ originals outside the MCU. Also, Star Wars cracked the Nielsen streaming rankings at any point in its run, but reviews told a different story. Neither critics nor audiences were particularly kind to Edge of History with the show earning a 38% critic score. Also have 49% audience score respectively.
Disney Has Cut Back On Its Non-MCU and Star Wars Originals
Even if the reviews had been better. However, it’s hard to say that Edge of History would have escaped the axe at Disney. The streamer has been cutting off many of its originals outside. Its two most popular canons at only one or two seasons each even if reviews were respectable. The John Stamos-led Basketball comedy Big Shot was one such casualty as was Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. Both were doomed from the start of their seconds. However, the decision to renew those series despite lacklustre viewership was largely the reason for Disney’s firing of Peter Rice. They weren’t the only ill-fated series as Mysterious Benedict Society. Diary of A Future President, and Turner & Hooch were all cancelled as well.
This is one of a whole lot of different series in a similar category that Disney has axed including, Turner and Hooch, Game Changers, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Diary of a Future President, Big Shot and The Mighty Ducks. Game Changers. The common thread here is mostly live-action series. That does not fall into the Marvel or Star Wars categories. Though even those series have trouble establishing themselves as actual shows that will return year after year. As many serve as one-offs or lead-ins to larger movies. And certainly, some fall flat on their face (looking at you, The Book of Boba Fett).
‘National Treasure: Edge Of History,’ Which Everyone Ignored Or Hated,
Disney Plus has a bit of a problem. Outside of its library of classic animated hits and its Star Wars and Marvel content. It has yet to find anything really in the middle, namely a bunch of family-friendly dramas, comedies and adventure series that all seem to end up failing. And failing quickly.
Nothing perhaps sums up this issue more than the recent National Treasure: Edge of History series, taking the name of the original National Treasure film series starring Nicholas Cage and quickly…erasing more or less everything people liked about it. While the old cast is gone, the tone was wildly different. Now it’s dead after one season, cancelled by Disney.
All streaming services are indeed undergoing at least some level of problems these days. Netflix is dramatically overspending and has content bloat. HBO Max is now “Max” and has seen dozens of series killed off or stripped away as WB Discovery cuts costs. Disney has struggled to find unique hits on Disney Plus. Also, hurt a lot of its theatrical business with ill-advised streaming-only movie releases.
So no, it’s not a huge surprise to see something badly conceived. The executed projects like National Treasure: Edge of History cancelled. But Disney has to figure this out for the long term.
