Adam Tyner

Twitter

It's especially a drag since it felt like the series was ramping up to the end anyway. I need closure!

majorjoe23

Damn. That sucks.

Jay G.

So they were cancelled months ago, and are just announcing it now? Damn, they can't release anything on time, can they?

Seriously though, it sucks. I was a fan of the show since I started watching around season 2. It's been 16 years though, and they only released 7 years. Maybe CN just got tired of the 2-3 year gaps between seasons.

I wonder if they tried shopping it around to other networks/services to see if it could get picked up. Maybe HBO Max?

milo bloom

We were just watching some movie of eps the other night. We’re way behind, is there a decent ending?

Jay G.

It's been 2 years since the last episode aired, but my gut was saying things were left in the lurch a bit. Reading the episode synopsis, the last episode is definitely not "series finale" material, and is barely "season finale" material.

Interestingly, about 3 episodes into season 7 they wrapped up a lot. I think these 3 episodes were originally going to be the season 6 finale, but they didn't finish them in time, and they didn't want to do another standalone set of episodes, so put them at the beginning of season 7. So season 7 wraps a lot up, and then starts unspooling more story. If you want a final episode that feels like an "ending" you could stop with S7E3, but if you've gotten that far, I'm not sure you could stop from watching more episodes. The rest of the season has a lot of good episodes, just not a great ending.

Maybe they could do a "movie," like a batch of 3-4 episodes to wrap things up.

Adam Tyner

I don't think it's a coincidence that the axe was swung so quickly after Mike Lazzo left Adult Swim.

The cancellation rumors were bubbling around all weekend, but I really thought it was gonna be a "nothing more after season 8" situation, not that we'd already seen the end.

Adam Tyner

Twitter

Adam Tyner

Speculation seems to be that series with long-term Hulu deals are being killed — that the mandate from up on high is to not spend a bunch of money producing shows that’ll end up on somebody else’s streaming service (rather than HBO Max) for the foreseeable future.

fujishig

Ok, that makes some sense. Because otherwise I don't know why they wouldn't just come out with another season or a movie or something, the fanbase is definitely still there to consume it.

Red Hood

I wonder if Comedy Central is willing to pick them up since they have decided to all in on animated series and cancel everything else.

Jay G.

Sounds like when Disney killed Clone Wars after buying Lucasfilm, because it aired on Cartoon Network. They let the few season 6 episodes that were produced stream on Netflix, while producing Rebels instead for Disney Channel. Then they finally did a full final season for Disney+, likely because the broadcast/streaming rights had all reverted back to Disney by that point.

That frames the CN/AS response of "We also want more Venture Bros. and have been working with Jackson and Doc to find another way to continue the Venture Bros. story." in a new light. Maybe they can do a series of "TV movies" or a "spin-off" that doesn't count as part of the same show, and thus could go to HBO Max for streaming instead of Hulu?

milo bloom

Yeah, I'm thinking movies might fall under different terms, so do 2 or three 65 minute movies and call it done?
I'd be down for that.

We've been downsizing so many DVDs, including a lot of cartoon stuff (like Animaniacs and Aqua Teen) but I just can't get rid of Venture Bros, that 3rd season Atari 2600 box art is one of the greatest DVD covers ever created.

fujishig

It is actually the one show I really want Max to get (but apparently they won't or this cancellation wouldn't have happened...)

slop101

Great write-up/postmortem for the show on NPR.

A pertinent quote:
Hope they get a TV-movie, or something, to wrap everything up.

I'm actually surprised it got canceled, as due to covid, animation is the one of the few "safe" entertainment mediums that can still be produced.

fujishig

It makes more sense if this was more of a case of the creators wanting to move on (which this seems to indicate was not the case) or the Hulu/streaming contracts thing. It's not like they were working on a new season, and the last one was a while ago so I'm not even sure COVID affected them at all.

PhantomStranger

It's my understanding that one Cartoon Network executive had been protecting the Venture Bros from cancellation for many years and the corporate overlords didn't see any value in continuing the show now that AT&T is in firm control.

milo bloom

Not to drag this thread off course, but it's this attitude that makes me wonder how shows like Big Bang Theory got so many "geek" fans when it's just Friends with better product placement, while something like The Venture Bros is taking the ideas of the weird and exploring what they really mean and how we would actually deal with them.

Still very weird that [adult swim] would tweet that they wanted more immediately after the show was cancelled. Really makes it feel like it was *way up high* executive telling them to cut anything that wasn't a massive hit.

Adam Tyner

There's a movie on the way! Blu-ray/VOD first. HBO Max/Adult Swim 90 days later.

clckworang

Great news! I'll take anything new from Venture Brothers.

milo bloom

Yeah, saw this coming. Seems to be easier for them to commit to movies one at a time than an ongoing series I guess.

So, hopefully they'll wrap up any loose plots while leaving open the option for more adventures.

They're also doing Metalacolypse and Aqua Teen Hunger Force movies.

Jay G.

I think it may also be a workaround for whatever deal they had with Hulu. The Hulu deal likely only covered the "TV Series," not movies.

They sort of did this already with the "All this and Gargauntua-2" special, which were basically two episodes combined. They could take what would normally be a 3-4 episode arc and convert it to a "movie" that plays straight through.

milo bloom

Yeah, that’s another reason to do it. These companies still insist on keeping tv and movie deals separate but I guess sometimes it works as a loophole.

Jason

So, given the "schedule" these guys were on, this upcoming movie will actually arrive before the next season would have.

I can't imagine why they bothered to cancel this show. It has enough of a fan base it had to be profitable to run it for ten weeks every 3-4 years.

Jay G.

Again, the theory is that the TV show's streaming rights had been sold to Hulu, where it'd remain in perpetuity as long as new episodes came out. WB/AT&T didn't want to spend money on any shows they couldn't capitalize on by streaming on HBO Max instead. So the show is cancelled, and then a few months later a "movie" is announced instead.

It's a bit like how Disney cancelled The Clone Wars after buying Lucasfilm, because the show was airing on Cartoon Network, and then instead made the sequel series Rebels to air on Disney Channel, and then even revived The Clone Wars after they got all the rights back and could stream it on Disney+.

Nowadays, it's all about the studios driving viewers to their exclusive streaming service. They don't want to spend money on something someone else partially benefits from, even if still profitable to them as well. Hulu is only surviving because Disney needs some place to put the racier Fox content.

milo bloom

We got movie sign!



Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart