Could the possibility of Amazon only giving hazbin 5 seasons and announcing said final season just right after season 2 ended, is due to spindle unionizing? I mean this a show that was always #1 trending on Amazon, topping on billboard charts, so much merch deals and with a consistent sometimes smooth animation, but much better then season 1s animation. It’s no secret the animators were getting paid almost nothing, during the production of season 1, but were forced to work the holidays to finish the season while vivienne and her friends got to vacation in Japan. They couldn’t finish helluva so they sold it to Amazon to finish the show.
Spindlehorse is not the primary animation studio, Bento Box is. Spindlehorse animators were pulled into the season 1 project after the budget collapsed towards the end of production, Bento Box is still the primary animation studio.
From my understanding, it was mainly the art director, their immediate assistants, and storyboard team working on Hazbin in the first place. The actual animation is done by Bento Box with some contracting work sent to Combo Estúdio.
I personally think the unionization had to do with Hazbin season 1 and Medrano explicitly exploiting and lying to her employees. Some who got verbal promises- being hired on for pennies to help complete Hazbin in exchange for a pay increase and transfer to Helluva- have made some comments that suggest not everyone had those promises honored.
Either they were not paid what they had been told they would be moving to Helluva Boss, or they signed contracts with this verbal agreement not realizing the contracts only covered Hazbin and then were told their contract was not going to be renewed, or maybe they did know the duration of their contract and believed Spindlehorse and Medrano wouldn't scam them like that.
But it seems more to me that Amazon took over Helluva Boss because of unions and Medrano being incapable of paying her employees fairly without a small loan of millions of dollars. Not that they would take out her kneecaps because she was hilariously inefficient at union busting.
Frankly, their rollout of announcing an additional season would go against the idea that Spindlehorse unionizing was some kind of deal breaker. They made more than enough money through the IP to give her another season that she apparently begs for constantly. We also know she has hired herself some really prominent representation in the industry to get her these deals.
It's just money and Medrano wants to be taken seriously as some auteur. An ill-defined universe actually makes coming up with ideas and stories to take place in it harder, not easier. You want to leave your options open with intention, not ambiguously defined. And I think she just doesn't actually have the ability to stick with anything.
She has always cut all her stories short.
