With the deluge of news over the past few days regarding the upcoming slate of Marvel Studios shows bound for Disney+, there was one tiny sad announcement that was kind of overlooked– Hulu has axed its freshman series, Helstrom. You are forgiven if you a) have never heard of it (it was hardly promoted), or b) didn’t realize this was based on characters from Marvel Comics (the name “Marvel” didn’t appear in the trailer or on any promotional images). The 10-episode first season was quietly dropped on October 16 with very little fanfare. Critics hated it, but viewers were kinder. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a dismal 27% critics rating, but a decent 86% audience score.
Paul Zbyszewski created the series and served as showrunner. Tom Austen co-starred as Daimon Helstrom, with Sydney Lemmon as his sister Ana (known in the comics as Satana), recast on the show as paranormal investigators that happen to be the children of a notorious serial killer. The cast also included Elizabeth Marvel, Robert Wisdom, Ariana Guerra, June Carryl, and Alain Uy.
This marks the end of the Jeph Loeb/live-action Marvel Television era. Under Loeb, Marvel Television (which is not affiliated with Marvel Studios) cranked out a large number of projects to varying degrees of success — ABC’s Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, and Inhumans, Freeform’s Cloak & Dagger, Hulu’s Runaways, FOX’s The Gifted, FX’s Legion, and perhaps most successfully, Netflix’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Defenders, and The Punisher.
While Netflix crafted its own mini-shared universe featuring the street level vigilantes of the Marvel Universe, it seemed as though Hulu sought to do the same with the supernatural corner. Runaways took on a paranormal slant with the Season 2 introduction of the sorceress Morgan Le Fay (Elizabeth Hurley). Helstrom was announced as having been ordered to series in May of last year, alongside a Ghost Rider program which would have starred Gabriel Luna. That September, Ghost Rider was scrapped.
Then in October, it was announced that Marvel Studios’ president, Kevin Feige, would oversee all upcoming Marvel TV projects. Jeph Loeb, who had overseen Marvel Television under the aegis of Marvel Entertainment (which includes the publishing division) for ten years, announced his departure.
Ghost Rider‘s cancellation was somewhat surprising, simply because it had already been announced and seemed like a done deal. But in light of Marvel Studios’ increasing TV output, it wasn’t that shocking. It was probably more surprising that Hulu went ahead with Helstrom. But maybe that was because this show was only loosely inspired by the comics, and the featured comic book characters are fairly obscure. Perhaps, Hulu felt that this concept was unique enough to survive on its own, without relying on the Marvel banner.
Either way, it’s the end of an era. From now on, all live-action TV shows based on Marvel characters will be directly connected to the movies and will spring from the mind of Kevin Feige and his collaborators, and will most likely be offered exclusively through Disney+. While Marvel Television is essentially defunct and Loeb is gone, his name will still be listed as an executive producer for two upcoming Marvel animated shows on Hulu, MODOK and Hit-Monkey, which were, like Helstrom, set into motion before Feige took control and Marvel Television went kaput.
Did you watch Helstrom? Did you enjoy it? Are you sad to see it over after just one installment?
Source: Deadline
