As reported yesterday, Showtime has been cleaning house as it goes through a rebranding process with Paramount+. The Hollywood Reporter gives an extended list of the Showtime originals getting canceled. Along with original programing of American Gigolo and Let The Right One In, more titles like Jim Carrey’s comedy, Kidding, as well as Kirsten Dunst’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida have been given the axe with the likes of Super Pumped and American Rust. While these shows were already not getting additional seasons, they’ve been removed from the service entirely, which is a shame. Some, such as Super Pumped, were limited series and presumably evergreen.
All of this cancelation news comes on the heels of both the premium cable network and the online streamer, Paramount+ goes through a merging rebranding to become Paramount+ on Showtime. Chris McCarthy, the President and CEO of Showtime and Paramount Media Networks, adds Showtime to his purview along with cable networks like MTV and Comedy Central. The plan is for Showtime to concentrate on new originals with franchise potential as he looks to cut costs at the cable channel.
This certainly isn’t the first of its kind, as in 2022, the new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, notoriously made a lot of unpopular decisions with HBO Max and DC films to bring the company out of the red. This included canceling shows on HBO Max as well as pulling multiple content from the streaming platform and, famously, shelving a feature film that involved a certain superhero modeled after a nocturnal creature.
HBO also made bold decisions to cancel popular shows like Westworld, which showcased extravagant budgets to achieve a feature film quality look. The show is also removed from the streaming service altogether, much to the chagrin of fans. For a series like the Kirsten Dunst comedy On Becoming a God in Central Florida, the show has had trouble securing a home, first being developed for AMC before getting purchased by YouTube. When YouTube had done away with scripted content, Showtime came to its rescue, only to now cut it loose as well.
Earlier, it was also revealed that Hulu canceled Reboot from Steven Levitan, who is attempting to shop around for another network after ending on a cliffhanger. Who can make sense of all these cancelations? There seems to be a great deal of overhaul and restarts with studios in the past year. Let’s try not to let our heads get dizzy.