What’s better than lying on the couch under a blanket watching the best shows. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of reasons why shows get cut – popularity, viewers, and most of all, profit. Some shows on this list can have production costs of up to $1 million every episode. These reasons could be why some shows get canceled.
If your favorite show had been canceled, don’t fret, they might create a spin off sooner than you’d think, or maybe even a reboot. Keep reading to see what’s happening to your favorite shows.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia @alwayssunny / Facebook.com
Starting from only costing $550K per episode to what it costs today at around $2 million! Mac and Dennis are the main characters and are portrayed by Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton. The show aired in 2005 and has been renewed for at least 3 future seasons.
Danny DeVito is the biggest name on the show and has a net worth of $70 million. That’s incredible considering that he only made $70 thousand a season in the beginning!
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Brooklyn Nine-Nine @BrooklynNineNine / Facebook.com
$100,000 per episode is what the Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast makes on average. The series was canceled at one point but was picked up by another network quickly afterwards. The Andy Samberg play Jake Peralta and is the protagonist police officer in Brooklyn. The show is a comedic spin on the usual cop programs you see.
Andy Samberg has a net worth of $15 million and has stayed on the show since it aired in 2016. He’s making the most of it and earning a fair amount of money along the way.
Last Man Standing
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Tim Allen stars in Last Man Standing as Mike Baxter. He’s a married man who works at a sports store. The show borrows a lot from his previous show Home Improvement. Last Man Standing aired in 2011 and has seven seasons out and was actually planned to stop on its sixth.
But even with it being an amazing series all good things have to stop at some point. It was announced that it would end after its ninth season. The ninth season ended after January 3, 2021.
Homeland
Homeland @HomelandOnShowtime / Facebook.com
Claire Danes plays the lead part in Homeland. She co-stars with Damian Lewis who plays Nicholas Brody, a terrorist who defected to the CIA. With these two stars acting together it’s no wonder that it was so successful. But after 2020, they’ll have to find other work. They both earned approximately $5 million per season. Now imagine how big the budget on the show must have been.
The locations shot are varied with the show taking place in Berlin, Morocco, New York, and even Cape Town, South Africa. Showtime pays $3 million for every episode.
This Is Us
This Is Us @NBCThisisUs / Twitter.com
Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Chrissy Metz, and others star in This Is Us, a tearjerker drama. The show picked up so well that the cast got a huge salary increase of about 4 times. The show is based in Los Angeles and competes with all of Fox’s other shows. The show’s rating is a whopping 91%.
With the kind of traction the shows gotten it doesn’t seem like it will stop anytime soon. The cast makes a reported $4.5 million every season. NBC must be paying a lot of money to keep This Is Us on air.
Stranger Things
The Big Bang Theory @TheBigBangTheory / Facebook.com
Strangers Things took off all over the world. With three seasons in the bag so far and having an amazing call back to the ’80s. All the cast has gotten significant salary bumps after the show got popular from $30,000 per episode to $250,000 per episode.
One of the cast who stands out is Millie Brown who makes $350,000 which is as much as the adult stars like Winona Ryder. Netflix is always willing to give lucrative actors more money with their net worth being around $200 billion.
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale @handmaidsonhulu / Facebook.com
The Handmaid’s Tale is based on a book by Margaret Atwood. Among the stars are Elisabeth Moss, Joeseph, Yvonne Strahovski, and Alexis Bledel. The show portrays an uncomfortable vision of the future. The fourth season if underway and is currently being streamed on Hulu
Elisabeth Moss starred as Peggy Olsen in Mad Men so this isn’t her first huge TV show. She earns around $75,000 an episode and Jon Hamm, the lead star, earns $250,000.
The Crown
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Here’s a show that had to pay its actresses more when they found out that the male costars were earning more. This means that a total of $270,000 in backpay. Claire Foy brought it to Netflix’s attention and they bumped her pay from her original $40,000 per episode.
The amount they’re paid is still under wraps but with four seasons and it still going strong, We’re sure the stars Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies are earning quite a bit. The show is scheduled to go to six seasons.
Blue Bloods
Blue Bloods @CBSBlueBloods / Facebook.com
The show Blue Bloods stars Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan, commissioner of the NYPD and patriarch leader of the Reagan family, which is basically a multigenerational police dynasty. The show also stars Donnie Wahlberg (Mike Wahlberg’s brother) and Bridget Moynahan. The show films in New York City, and it airs on CBS. Blue Bloods was created by Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess. The show has been on since 2010, and it is still going strong in terms of viewership. Tom Selleck himself has said, “I don’t think there is an endpoint. I think there is a lot of life in the show.” This statement certainly bodes well for fans.
Selleck takes home around $200,000 per episode for his part in the series, although back in the ‘80s the actor took home $500,000 for each episode of Magnum P.I. The network uses a significant amount of product placement in the series, with numerous high-end gadgets and accessories getting screen time.
SEAL Team
SEAL Team @Park_Neighbours / Twitter.com
SEAL Team is shaping up to be the next big hit for David Boreanaz, who earned his fame from the long-running series Bones, where he starred opposite Emily Deschanel. The show centers around the experiences of an elite unit in the Navy SEALS, following the team as they adapt to new challenges associated with difficult missions.
The show has been running on CBS for four seasons and has received generally positive reviews. It has an average rating of 70% on the website Rotten Tomatoes, which averages all reviews from viewers and critics alike. With that being said, it could be a while before this show gets the chop.
Ozark
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Following two acclaimed seasons of Ozark, Netflix swiftly renewed the hit show for a third season that aired in 2020. Producers had a total of five seasons planned for the sprawling crime-focused show, saying they’d “always talked about it as five seasons” from the very beginning. Sadly, it didn’t quite go to plan.
The show was renewed for a fourth and final season, devastating viewers and critics who wanted to stick with the Byrde family for a little while longer. The streaming titan didn’t give an explicit reason for the cancelation, but it could be that showrunners simply wanted to go out on a high. Ozark features Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as a couple who move their kids from Chicago to the middle of nowhere in the Ozarks. They’re not just there for a vacation, however; Bateman’s character is soon forced to launder drug money.
NCIS: Los Angeles
Kensi Blye NCIS LA @mitralawfalls/YouTube.com
The star-studded spinoff of the original NCIS is a rather ambitious show, tackling the combination of military and police drama with ease. It’s been running for 12 seasons, and with over 270 episodes it’s pretty clear that it’s a big win with the American TV-watching public. In the series, Chris O’Donnell plays a legendary agent who heads up an undercover team within the NCIS. While there is no actual NCIS branch in Los Angeles, viewers are more than ready to suspend their disbelief to tune in every week to see what O’Donnell’s character is up to.
NCIS: Los Angeles has a great legacy behind it and a strong fanbase that will likely propel it forward for years to come. However, TV fans know as well as actors that longevity is a privilege and not a given right in the entertainment business. Every season renewal is a blessing!
Lucifer
Lucifer @LuciferNetflix / Facebook.com
Tom Ellis went from a relatively unknown British actor to a heartthrob sensation after landing the role of Lucifer Morningstar. The Fox series is based on the DC Comics character of the same name and gained quite the cult following. Originally, Lucifer was canceled fairly early on in season three, but an impassioned fan campaign and the #SaveLucifer hashtag caused Warner Bros. to sell it to Netflix.
Subsequently, the cast found themselves with work for another two seasons, but season 6 will be the last outing. After the final 10-episode arc airs in 2021, Tom Ellis will be free as a bird to charm casting directors with his devilish grin. Even though Lucifer has had a fairly short lifespan compared to other hit shows, the streaming service didn’t scrimp on production costs. Each episode of the series costs $4 million to make, which might be why it’s being wrapped after season 6. After all, shows tend to get more expensive, not less.
FBI
FBI @TVReleaseDates/Twitter.com
Dick Wolf, the same creator behind the Law & Order franchise, recently partnered with Craig Turk to create FBI. FBI has aired on CBS for three seasons. While there is no word on a fourth outing, there’s no sign it’s coming to an end, either. The series stars Missy Peregrym, Zeeko Zaki, Jeremy Sisto, Ebonee Noel and more. FBI focuses on the inner workings of the FBI office in New York. The show focuses on major crimes that occur (or are about to occur), and the team’s attempts to stop and/or solve them. FBI has done reasonably well in the critical reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes gave the show a 53% for the first season. The review aggregator’s consensus was that FBI had a “compelling cast” and an “adrenaline-spiking” plot. That being said, not all critics think the series has what it takes to become a true legend. Only time will tell.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel @DiscussingFilm / Twitter.com
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has been nominated for more than a dozen Emmy Awards, winning the trophy for Outstanding Comedy Series. It is set in the late fifties, and it features a housewife, Midge Maisel, who discovers that she is secretly a talented stand-up comedian. The show has had three seasons so far, and it films in New York City.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel stars Rachel Brosnahan, who gives a comedic-yet-poignant performance as the lead character of the series. Season three dropped on Amazon Prime in 2020 and fans are no doubt excited to see where season four goes. When the show first aired, Amazon didn’t pay Brosnahan a huge amount as she was relatively unknown. While the exact amount has never been revealed, it was less than $100,000 per episode. Now, she earns triple that which is hardly surprising given how much money she’s making the streaming service.
Billions
Billions @el7arte / Twitter.com
Damien Lewis is getting paid handsomely for each episode of his latest drama series, Billions. He and his co-stars Paul Giamatti and Maggie Siff already make an estimated $250,000 per episode, with Lewis’ salary per season capped at $3 million.
It was created by Andrew Sorkin, David Levien, and Brian Koppelman, and currently airs on Showtime. With over 55 episodes so far, the series is still going strong and fans can look forward to a sixth season when it finally goes hits TV screens sometime in 2021. Fans may recognize Maggie Siff from another long-running series. Siff had a lead role in the biker drama Sons of Anarchy for the first six seasons as Tara Knowles. At the time, Siff was getting around $375,000 per season before her character was written off.
Young Sheldon
Young Sheldon @MichaelAusiello / Twitter.com
Given how lucrative The Big Bang Theory was, it’s only natural that there was a spin-off. CBS’s number-one comedy series is Young Sheldon. The show is the prequel to the life of super-genius Sheldon Cooper, and it stars Iain Armitage as young Sheldon Cooper. The show was created by Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro.
The series is set in 1989, and it has a 94% rating on Google. Young Sheldon on the show is nine years old, but he has skipped four grades and is about to start high school. The comedy has run for four seasons so far. Thankfully for fans, it doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon. As the main actor is a child, the network isn’t exactly paying a huge amount of money to Armitage per episode. In the first season, he made $30,000 per episode before a big bump to $61,200 in the second. That’s still more than your average paper round would get you.
Euphoria
Euphoria @EuphoriaHBONews / Twitter.com
The teen drama Euphoria is the American adaptation of an Israel-based show of the same name. The drama follows the life of seventeen-year-old Rue, who just got out of rehab and is struggling to get her life together. The show also follows other teens in Rue’s social circle, all of which have their own serious struggles.
Euphoria airs on HBO, and its episodes all have the same writer: Sam Levinson, who wrote Assassination Nation. Euphoria stars actress Zendaya as Rue Bennett. Other stars include Hunter Schafer, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Barbie Ferreira. The controversial show has been given the greenlight for a second season, much to the delight of fans. Zendaya herself is no stranger to starring in high-profile movies and TV shows, having worked closely with Disney. She also currently stars as MJ, Peter Parker’s love interest in the latest string of Spider-Man movies. The most recent one, Homecoming, took $880.2 million against a $175 million budget.
GLOW
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If you’re a fan of glitter and spandex, you’ll love GLOW. It stars Allison Brie as Ruth Wilder, a failed actress residing in LA during the 1980s. Ruth is able to make a name for herself as a pro-wrestler, and she forms a team of twelve other Hollywood dropouts to take over the female wrestling world. Brie takes home $300,000 per episode.
The show has received great reviews, but despite being initially renewed for a fourth season, Netflix controversially reversed its decision in October 2020. The series was a victim of COVID-19, which forced production to shut down completely. With so much contact involved in the series, there’s simply no safe way to shoot it. A Netflix spokesperson said, “We’ve made the difficult decision not to do a fourth season of GLOW due to COVID, which makes shooting this physically intimate show with its large ensemble cast especially challenging.” The cast and crew were just as devastated as fans.
Vikings
Vikings @linesactors / Twitter.com
Historical dramas tend to do quite well with their target demographic, and Vikings was no different. Michael Hirst created the show which originally premiered on the History channel. Based on the exploits of real-life Viking Ragnar Lothbrok, the show stars Travis Fimmel and Katheryn Winnick in lead roles.
Vikings soldiered on for six mead-drinking seasons before ultimately calling it a day. The final 10 episodes dropped on Amazon Prime on December 30, 2020. However, it might not be the end entirely. It was announced that Hirst and MGM television were working on a sequel series called Vikings: Valhalla for Netflix.
Black Mirror
Black Mirror @blackmirror / Twitter.com
Created by Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror is a British sci-fi anthology series. The cast rotates every episode, though there are some pretty big names clocking in, such as Bryce Dallas Howard, Jon Hamm, Jodie Foster and more. The series revolves around technology and its downfalls.
It is essentially a revamp of The Twilight Zone, except with high-tech gadgets. So far there are five seasons of the show, with twenty-two episodes (each episode is around fifty minutes long). While it’s been some time since Black Mirror‘s last season hit screens, the show hasn’t been canceled. It’s currently in production limbo, with no clear decision on another season.
The Morning Show
The Morning Show @TheMorningShow / Twitter.com
There was a time when Jennifer Aniston made history as part of the cast of Friends for taking home a record $1 million per episode. Now, as one of the leading stars of AppleTV’s hit The Morning Show she takes home double that.
Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell also star in the series that focuses on the cutthroat world of morning TV, rounding off a truly stellar cast. Luckily for fans, the show will be getting a second season and will likely be around for a while yet, considering how much money it’s bringing into the network.
The Good Fight
The Good Fight @thegoodfightcbs / Facebook.com
If you’re a fan of the show The Good Wife, you’ll probably like its spinoff, The Good Fight. The CBS series stars Christina Baranski, Rose Leslie, Cush Jumbo, and Sarah Steele as its main characters. Julianna Margulies reportedly declined to appear on the new spinoff because she didn’t feel her salary would be high enough.
The Good Fight airs on CBS All Access. It has had four seasons so far, and it has won multiple Critics’ Choice TV Award as a drama. The show originally released in 2017, and it picks up a year after the final events on The Good Wife. Fans can expect to see it move into its fifth season – and if everything goes well, beyond.
Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul @ltsSaulGoodman / Twitter.com
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul is actually a sort-of prequel to Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad fans will remember that Saul Goodman is the attorney for crime kingpin (and former chemist) Walter White. Well, Better Call Saul takes it back to when Goodman was a small-name attorney named Jimmy McGill.
The show has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it first aired in 2015. The show was renewed for a fifth season, expanding its episode number in 2020, before getting the green light for a sixth and final instalment set to air in 2021. Like Breaking Bad, the writers on this show are also Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. It won a Satellite Award.