Netflix’s abrupt cancelation of “GLOW” on Monday, despite the series having already been renewed for and having shot at least one full episode of a fourth and final season, has been met with understandable outrage.
While far from a “Stranger Things” sized hit, the 1980s female wrestling dramedy was a decent performer for the streamer – especially favored amongst high income households – and was one of their more critically acclaimed works up there with “Mindhunter” and “BoJack Horseman”.
Netflix cited the admittedly high cost of shooting a fourth season in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and stated that the actors have already been financially compensated for the full season despite not having shot one.
Even so, those involved are keen not to leave those who supported the show hanging. Series co-star Marc Maron, discussing the show’s cancelation in an Instagram Live video on Tuesday morning, has implored Netflix to allow the show’s cast and creative team the resources to finish a two-hour telemovie wrapping up the show’s storylines. Maron says:
“Let us wrap it up in a two-hour Netflix movie. Give the showrunners and the cast and the writers the chance to finish the story in a movie, right? Then it’s all fine. That would take the financial pressure off and the writers could play it out, we could shoot it out. The thing about shooting a movie is that when you have the whole shooting script you can be economical about your shooting. I think they could do it in less time than it would take to shoot the show.
The reason I was given from the showrunners was basically a financial one in that they didn’t want to pay to keep the sets alive anymore. We’ve got two offices and soundstages being leased. They were two and a half episodes in on the day they went into lockdown. I was told that they didn’t want to eat the cost of maintaining the sets for another six or seven months to begin production. So that’s what we heard. Honestly, who knows? The protocols they have in place now, I know there are a lot of things being shot, but we have a big cast and crew. Who knows where we’re going to be in January?”
A film wrap up is a technique that Netflix has employed before, most notably with Lana Wachowski’s “Sense8” series which scrapped a third season due to the economic expense, but a push from fans led to it scoring a well-regarded telemovie to close out the show’s storylines and character arcs and do it all for the cost of only a fraction of a season whilst being able to produce it much quicker.
The three current seasons of “GLOW” are streaming now on Netflix.
Source: Indiewire