The Magic: The Gathering TV series was recently reported to being cancelled...but why?
Last week, actor Brandon Routh, who was all set to be one of the leads in Netflix's then-upcoming Magic the Gathering series for Netflix where he would voice the character Gideon Jura, came out and said that it is no longer happening.
More specifically he said "I'm not sure. I did do a voice for it. As far as I understand, nobody's put out a press release about it, but apparently it's not happening. That's kind of old news. I'm not sure why it's surfacing again."
And while Netflix and Wizards of the Coast haven't tacked on a conformation, their silence and lack of saying otherwise confirms it. But why?
Why did the Netflix series end. It was known to be in trouble following the departure of the Russo brothers in 2021, but they bounced back and got new producers and writers. As late as last year it was still confirmed to be in development during a Hasbro earnings report.
But why now? Is it Hasbro?
Netflix cancelling more animated series because of the cost? Was it the lack of an audience? Script problems? Was it the storyline? Even fans were divided on an animated show following the overarching storyline against one made of more plane-bound stories.
Magic Untapped reached out to a writer for Netflix series', including one whose animated show was cancelled for some insight.
"For Magic, it would have been expensive even if it wasn't animated," said the writer, whom wished to remain anonymous for professional reasons. "You go traditional with sets, and wow, that's a ton of money. Same with cgi. Animated? That's even more expensive in some cases. Magic was a good pull because of the built in audience. But look at how shows like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are suffering now with writing and ratings issues going against high budgets.
For my animated show that was cancelled, you know, we had a good idea and hoped to build an audience. Netflix had had good luck with BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth. But, specifically, the failure of some Rooster Teeth shows and one season animated shows on Hulu and things sort of doomed that show I was on.
Going back to Magic, yeah, it was money, almost guarantee it. But it would have been pretty good and avoided a lot of common issues. A lot of characters are already set in a variety of races and species, so casting would not have been slammed with "You're trying to be more diverse" or "Why aren't you being diverse?". Magic, and in particular animation, gets around that.
And what is also grating is that Magic has had a lot of good animated trailers for upcoming sets. A lot of those are done very well, and look like shows I want to see. They could have really tapped into that. Or honestly, tie in a TV series to one of the sets, so you can read it, play it, and even watch it with the storyline. That would have been really good with synergy, especially if the show had a way of making you watch and send in for an exclusive card or something, like how Wizards gives out Pokémon cards during Pokémon movies. There's a way to do this."
As of September 19, official cancellation word has yet to officially be released.
