AMC Scraps 61st Street Season 2, Invitation to a Bonfire Adaptation Starring Tatiana Maslany
Season 2 of Peter Moffat’s legal drama 61st Street will not air on AMC after all.
To cut costs, the network has scrapped the follow-up season, even though all eight episodes have already been filmed, our sister site Variety reports. The show, which starred Courtney B. Vance, was originally greenlit as a two-season event series back in 2019.
The network also pulled the plug on the series adaption of Adrienne Celt’s book Invitation to a Bonfire, which starred Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk, Orphan Black). Per Variety, four of the planned six episodes were already shot.
61st Street centered on Moses Johnson (played by Doctor Who’s Tosin Cole), a promising Black teen who was wrongfully swept up into Chicago’s infamously corrupt criminal justice system. Franklin Roberts (Vance), an overworked defense attorney, took on Moses’ case, and his push for change intensified over the course of the show. [pmc_inline_gallery]
The series was a gut-wrenching look at how one incident affects all aspects of the community, from Moses’ mother Norma (Andrene Ward-Hammond) and younger brother Joshua (Bentley Green) to the police officers and prosecutors investigating and the activists seeking justice and accountability.
Meanwhile, Invitation to a Bonfire was a psychological thriller set at an all-girls boarding school in New Jersey in the 1930s. The show followed Zoya (Freya Mavor), a young Russian immigrant pulled into a deadly love triangle with the school’s newest faculty member, an enigmatic novelist named Leo (Pilou Asbæk) and his bewitching wife (Maslany).
One would have thought that in the age of Streaming Wars it would’ve been easier to dump finished content online, but somehow even that isn’t “cost cutting” enough for these entertainment companies nowadays.
They don’t want to pay residuals to the cast and creatives.
I guess that must be it.
I mean, how much cost_cutting is there if all 8 episodes are filmed?
Post production on a non-effects show like 61st is baked into the budget and consists almost entirely of editing and foley work.
I hope someone rescues 61st Street since it has already been shot. It was a great show.
With four out of six episodes shot for the Tatiana Maslany show and the whole season for 61st street, how does it make sense to cancel them?
I don’t get that either.
I thought 4 of 6 episodes were already filmed. 2022 was all about the studio tax write offs.
This sucks. This tax write off crap has got to end. Canceling shows that are filmed and done….that should NOT be allowed to be write off.
U can thank James Dolan for this, he owns AMC
Hopefully some other company will pick up the eight already filmed episodes of season two of 61st Street, a riveting show with the great Courtney B. Vance.
How about they stop pumping out Walking Dead spin-offs that are boring as hell and maybe they would find the funds for more original content, that’s a start.
61st street season 2 canceled? Same ole story … Our stories can’t be successfully told on White owned stations. We have to die… play drug dealers … pimps… maids, be gay, or be a man who dresses like a woman or be a straight snitch to stay relevant on most TV networks. This show was only reason for me to watch corny assed AMC anyway! But, I’m definitely done watching now!
Very good show, I agree, good shows like this always get cancelled.