It took Cinemax long enough to make the official call, and we knew it was, unfortunately, true anyway, but it has finally declared THE KNICK dead on the table. What, its last episodes were in December of 2015? In a statement the president of HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming, Kary Antholis stated that –
“After a critically acclaimed two-season run of The Knick on Cinemax, we will not be going forward with additional episodes of the series. Despite our pride in and affection for the series, as well as our respect for and gratitude towards Steven Soderbergh and his team, we have decided to return Cinemax to its original primetime series fare of high-octane action dramas, many of which will be internationally co-produced.”
If you recall the lead player on the show Clive Owen declared that he was only in the series, as Dr. John W. Thackery, for two seasons and he stuck to that decision even though the show was critically acclaimed. But Antholis cited another point that was also a concern. His statement reads –
“Critics loved the show, and I can’t tell you how many studio executives around town have told me it’s their favorite show on television, but it did not find an audience at the level that Banshee did. Even though in terms of an HBO show, The Knick is a modestly priced show, in terms of a Cinemax show, it started to throw our budget out of whack.”
There was talk of possibly introducing other strong characters to replace Owen’s Thackery if the series was to go forward, but Cinemax runs on an even tighter set of budgetary guidelines than HBO and the show was evidently leaning towards being too expensive to maintain anyway.
Cinemax obviously took its time to weigh out the options regarding casting and financing and THE KNICK evidently did not fit the model of the direction Cinemax had decided to go in. As previously reported it is targeting cost-effective action fare, thus the STRIKE BACK reboot on the way.
I guess now we can officially mourn THE KNICK, which should have been on HBO all along.
(Source: Deadline)
2 comments
AARRGHHH!!! This would still be on the air if they had just kept it on HBO instead of throwing a bone to their stepchild network. I would love to know whose idea that was.
Yeah, sometimes it is a real kick in the head, isn’t it? And Starz should have never gotten AMERICAN GODS.